


Bounded Rationality

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Attempted Murder, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Depression, M/M, Manipulation, Non-Consensual Soul Bond, Serious Injuries, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lenaal didn't become a First to take missions. That doesn't mean he can turn them down when the High Councillor asks him to take them. His latest--and longest--assignment? Take the name the Council gives him--Leonard McCoy--and do his damnedest to make sure that Jim Kirk becomes captain of the starship Enterprise. He just doesn't realize how big of a deal that actually is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bounded Rationality

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Star Trek Big Bang 2013](http://startrekbigbang.livejournal.com/). (A day late and a dollar short, but what can you do when anxiety smacks you in the face, am I right?)
> 
> This fic really did take a village, and would not exist without several key factors, the two biggest ones being [Banbury](http://banbury.livejournal.com) and [Tresa_Cho](http://tresa-cho.dreamwidth.org), my artist and mixer respectively. If not for their diligence and patience with my flakiness, I would have dropped out when things got too tough. They are the reason no one else let me back out, and the reason I didn't let myself back out. A thousand thanks to their patience and perseverance on my behalf. You can find the art [here](http://banbury.livejournal.com/158771.html) and the mix [here](http://tresa-cho.dreamwidth.org/299599.html).
> 
> On top of them, my three betas were absolutely crucial in helping this piece come to fruition. [Luna](wildunknownmen.tumblr.com), who sat with me Saturday night while I cried about being afraid I wouldn't finish. [Lizzy](rhodesstark.tumblr.com), who coaxed me through last week with gentle reminders, and then read the fic on the bus so she could come in and tell me all the ways it could be better. And, above all, [Su](andromeda-reinvented.tumblr.com), who sat on the phone with me for four hours on Sunday while I bitched and whined and wrote, made sure I didn't give up any of the ~~dozen~~ times I tried to, and then sat down to do a read-through for coherence and characterization. Without these three ladies, this fic simply wouldn't exist. Ten thousand thanks to them for their patience and assistance.
> 
> If you made it through that, then ten thousand thanks to you as well. These wonderful folks deserve all the recognition in the world, because I literally would not be posting this without them.

_[Bounded rationality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality) is the idea that in decision-making, rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the finite amount of time they have to make a decision._

[Art!](http://banbury.livejournal.com/158771.html)

[Mix!](http://tresa-cho.dreamwidth.org/299599.html)

When the spaceship comes crashing into their world and he feels the continuum wobble and buckle but not break, Lenaal falls to his knees with the rest of his brethren, bowing before the High Councillor, hoping that Xe has an answer.

As Xe stares up into the black, Lenaal chances a glance up. He’s the only one to see how frightened and desperate Xe is.

It will haunt him for months.

\--------

The Narada Incident is the single biggest disaster the Cenophians have had to rectify in recorded history, and the worst part is that there’s no one to blame. Because it shouldn’t have been their mistake to correct. It’s their brethren three universes over that let their problems fall into _their_ universe, and now they’re left with the fallout. No one on the High Council is happy, least of all High Councillor Rena. But there’s no one to blame, and nothing to do, except let the Narada punch its way through to their universe to wreak its havoc, and try to repair the damage after the fact.

No one but Rena knows just how far reaching that damage will be. And Xe can only pray that Xir brethren can forgive Xir.

\--------

Lenaal is good at his job, and damn proud of the fact. Sure, he’s young for a First, but he’s _good_. The best damn Healer the colony’s seen in three centuries if the High Councillor is to be believed. And maybe he has Jenarel to thank for that, for shaking him up and sorting him out and making him _want_ to succeed in a way he may never have without her, but his baby girl has a swelled enough head already, and Lenaal doesn’t need to encourage that any more.

So, yeah, he’s good at his job, which is why he isn’t as surprised as he thinks he should be when the High Councillor summons him with the rest of the Firsts.

Xir voice is soft and careful as Xe outlines the decisions of the Council, and what the year plus of debates and discussions and meditations about the Narada Incident have determined.

“There is both good news and bad news. Fortunately, it will take interference in only one Human’s life to bring the universe back into alignment. Unfortunately, it is a long term assignment. Longer than any we have ever performed.”

It’s Lenaal, the youngest of those assembled, that has the courage to ask. “How long?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Eight months? Nine?”

High Councillor Rena quirks an eyebrow. “If you’re lucky.”

Lenaal gapes. “ _Longer_?”

High Councillor Rena’s lips thin, but Xe does not say anything more.

Reyalo speaks next. “What do you require of us, Councillor?”

"We have already chosen a candidate. All we need is his consent and your witness to his acceptance."

Lenaal relaxes. The Narada is full to bursting with weaponry with a bloodthirsty leader and crew. They'll have chosen Nerali or Lorena or Reyene; one of the Warrior Firsts. Or, if they're feeling particularly brave, a First Mage like Wenrey or a First Scout like Harali. There's no way in hell they'd pick a young, inexperienced--

"First Healer Lenaal Rorian Dorel. You have been chosen to--"

The entire room erupts in sound around him, but Lenaal just stares up at High Councillor Rena in complete confusion. "Councillor?"

Xir face is tight as Xe glares at the protesting Firsts around Xir, but at Lenaal's words, Xir face softens a little. "Yes, Lenaal?"

"I'm... I'm just a Healer. What can I do against a ship like the _Narada_?"

"Your responsibility is not to stop the Narada. It is to protect the person that _will_ stop it."

Lenaal relaxes a little. Protecting. That's something he can do. He can protect. He's good at that. Still. "Are you certain?"

The High Councillor sighs. "First Healer Lenaal. You are the _only_ one that can complete this mission."

Lenaal sighs. "Then, I accept."

\--------

Rena nods his dismissal, and Lenaal leaves the arguing Firsts behind. Lets Xir deal with them. He has a daughter to talk to.

\--------

"Wait, they put you on the Narada mission?"

Lenaal rolls his eyes as he sets dinner out on the low table. "Try to sound a little more surprised, Malaysha."

" _You_? On the Narada?"

“It’s almost like you don’t think I can do it.”

Jenarel sobers immediately. “It’s not that, Daddy. I _know_ you can do anything you set your mind to. I just don’t see why you’d set your mind to a mission that might involve killing a whole ship full of innocents.”

Lenaal shrugs, settling down across from her. “It’s not my call. Or, at least, it’s not supposed to be my call. Dealing with the Narada isn’t my mission. It’s someone else’s.”

Jenarel raises a silver eyebrow. “They’re trusting this to another?”

Lenaal grins. “To a Human, no less.”

“A Human?”

Lenaal’s grin widens. “The times are a-changin’.”

Jenarel hums around her lorela. “That they are, Daddy. So, how long will you be gone? A few months? It’s a pretty big mission to get cleaned up too quickly.”

Lenaal shifts on his haunches. “High Councillor Rena wasn’t clear on that.”

Jenarel freezes, food halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“It’s a long-term assignment. That’s all Xe would tell me.”

“Well, of course it wouldn’t be just an in-and-out, but, to not know how long?”

“I imagine Xe knows how long it will take, Xe just hasn’t seen fit to inform me. In the meantime--”

“I’m not staying with Mama and Rere.”

“Jen--”

“No, Daddy. I’ll stay with Maren or Rolan or Reliel, but I’m not staying with Mama.”

“Jen, Malaysha, be reasonable.”

“No, Daddy. I’ll stay with one of my friends, but I won’t stay with Mama.”

“Whatever your feelings about your mother, she will best be able to care for you while I am gone.”

“But I don’t like the others. I don’t see why they couldn’t stay with _you_.”

Lenaal sighs. “Because your mother was already First Bonded to Weren when she and I were together. I never intended to bond with them, nor they with me. You know that as well as I do.”

“And you’ve never hidden that from me. I appreciate it. But that doesn’t mean I want to live with her and xir while you’re out there trying to put the universe right. I don’t. I _won’t_.”

Lenaal sighs. “I’m not going to fight you on this, Jen.”

“Good. Because you’d lose. So. You’re going bipedal?” She shoves the lorela the rest of the way in her mouth and chews decisively, like that settles the discussion.

Unfortunately, it does.

\--------

He takes a month to prepare for the mission. Arranging colleagues to cover his shifts at the hospital for the near future is easy. Negotiating where Jenarel will be staying isn’t.

“You want me to let our little girl stay with someone other than me while you’re gone?”

“She’s almost fifty years old, Joreno, you know how they are at that age. Just. Give her time. She’ll come ‘round.”

Joreno’s eyes flare bright green, her citrine skin fairly glowing with rage. “She’s still my baby girl, Len.”

“I’m not arguing with you on that. But you have a family of your own to start. And I know you’re trying to start one.”

Joreno’s eyes drift. “You would always have been welcome with us, Len.”

“We were young and foolish, and I was the one that should have known better. It was my job to take responsibility for our mistakes.”

“She’s not just a responsibility, and she's certainly not a _mistake_. I know she means more to you than that, Len.”

Lenaal’s face softens. “And she always will. Which is why I can’t ask her to do anything she doesn’t want right now, when none of us know--”

Joreno gives him no warning before she darts in to press a kiss against the corner of his lips, fingertips brushing his jaw. “You’ll be fine, Lenaal. Your skills are too great to lose. The High Councillor would not waste you on an impossible mission.”

Lenaal sighs, leaning into the kiss, welcoming the touch.

“Stay with us tonight.”

He does.

\--------

Jen wrinkles her nose when Lenaal rolls in at 088:50 with hair mussed and skin bruised blue at his throat and shoulders. “Really, Daddy?”

Lenaal shrugs, grinning at her. “You’re always saying I should get out more.”

“Not if it means I have to see you come back looking like _that_. So? What did she say?”

“You can stay with Maren and her rether.”

Jen lifts a victorious fist into the air before darting forward to wrap all four of her arms around her father’s torso. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Lenaal laughs, wrapping her up in his own arms. “Just don’t impose on Wara too much, alright? Xe’s taking a chance letting you move in with xir while I’m gone.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Jen answers with an eyeroll.

Len feels his face soften as he reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Be good.”

Her eyes go a little misty. “I will, Daddy.”

He pulls her forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I know you will, Malaysha.”

\--------

He wonders if it should bother him that he has so little to organize before he leaves, but when the day comes, he is glad of it.

High Councillor Rena personally inserts the communicator into the base of his neck, letting it work its way into his brain as they prepare him for the shift into his Human body. It will take the full three months of travel for him to accustom himself to the body, and easily another month on Earth itself to finalize the shift, but the sooner they can get him on the ground, the better.

His briefing is decidedly brief. He's to board the ship, get to Earth, find and board the Starfleet shuttle that will be waiting for him, and then wait for further instructions. Simple enough.

That doesn't mean he's excited about it. His skin feels too tight from the second the transformation starts, and he knows he has at least three days before the pain dulls into numbness. But in a perverse way, he's grateful for the pain, because it makes the terror of flying fade just a touch.

The fear of flying had been the thing that almost kept him from becoming a First. He'd tried to argue that as a Healer he'd probably never need to go out on long missions anyway, but the Council had been insistent, not issuing him his First license until he'd passed all the flight training courses. So he'd gritted his teeth and gone through the motions and hated every minute of it, coming home every night white-faced and shaking until Jenarel had quietly asked if this was all strictly necessary. It had taken one look at her face for him to remember why he was doing this in the first place. Because really, at the end of the day, everything is for Jenarel.

After that, it had been a little easier.

Of course, easier is all relative, and actually piloting the ship is just as stressful as it’s always been, so the constant throb of pain in his skull is a welcome added point of focus. Fortunately, all he really has to do is keep an eye on the autopilot; his input will be minimal at best. The three months certainly won't be a cakewalk; although a certain amount of Earth data comes part and parcel with the communicator in his brain (mostly language), most of his time will be spent studying up--both consciously and Under--on the planet that will be his home for the foreseeable future. Which, with a planet like Earth, could take a while.

Knowledge about major players in the game of intergalactic balance-keeping--the Vulcans and Klingons, among others--is commonplace for all Cenophians, but Earth became a player in the game less than ten years ago, long after Lenaal was already out of school. It's barely been covered in Jenarel's studies, meaning his knowledge about the planet is virtually nonexistent. Thus, every hour, both waking and sleeping, is spent steeping his brain in the customs and cultures--both recent and ancient--of the planet.

Its history is common. Familiar. Boring, even. Life begins. One species emerges victorious, then tries to bend the planet to their will. Wars are waged. Humans are born and live and spend their lives trying to be something greater than themselves and then they die. For years, their world had been the only one they'd known.

And then they'd grown interested in the stars, had traveled to them, with primitive technology, which became more and more advanced. For the Humans and their tiny lifespans, this must seem like a huge achievement.

To Lenaal, all he can wonder is whether or not the High Councillor has been alive longer than Humans have existed. (Xe probably hasn't, but he'd have to check.) He knows his own people must have been so primitive at some point in their past as well, but it was so long ago that it seems ridiculous to even consider it. So he doesn't. He just learns his Earth history and waits patiently for the trip to be over.

\----

Someone should have told him that Earth alcohol would hit him so hard.

And yeah, okay, so no one’s ever actually _run_ an Earth mission before, so there'd be no first hand experience on the matter, but still. Someone in the tech labs should have looked into it. Because seriously. _Seriously_. This is not acceptable. Especially.

Especially because when they said “one month Earth calibration,” they’d meant one _Earth_ month, not a proper month, so he’s still shaking off the hangover as he strides over to the shuttledock. This will be fine. Fine. It’s no big deal. Sure, the Earthlings aren’t as technologically advanced as his own people, but _still_.

Then he sees the ship they’ll be in, heading over to San Francisco, and almost turns right back around.

 _Rena. Rena, for god’s sake, I am_ not _getting on that thing. I refuse._

_Really, Healer, you’re being--_

_No, Rena. That thing’s a death trap. I refuse. I **refuse**._

Xir response, when it comes, is stern. _You will, Healer. You will get on the shuttle and you will go to their base, and you will complete your mission. You’ve been trained for this, Healer. Now go._

_But--_

_**Go.** _

With a sigh, Lenaal clenches his fists and stalks over to the shuttle. He doesn’t remember what he says to the captain out front, or anything between Rena’s order and locking himself in the bathroom on the shuttle. The flask against his chest is heavy, and he tries not to slide it out, but the anxiety is making his heart rate skyrocket, and even though his hands (and how the hell is he supposed to operate with only two hands? He’ll just have to keep working on that; one month is _not_ enough to accustom himself to that) are nowhere near shaking yet, he feels unsteady and uncertain and it’s too easy to uncap the flask and pour a mouthful down his throat.

The ease lasts the ten minutes before someone pulls him out of the bathroom and back out into the main compartment. He’s not sure what he says to the kid (and wow, he really is a kid. Pretty, for a Human, but still decidedly a kid) next to him--probably facts he’d absorbed on those three months alone on his (significantly safer) ship--but he’s looking up at Lenaal with a mild sort of interest in his eyes that has Lenaal handing over his flask almost automatically.

“Jim Kirk.”

His own name is on the tip of his tongue, the _Rorian Dorel_ so automatic, but he catches himself on the stranger part of this new name, leads with that instead. “McCoy. Leonard McCoy.”

The kid smiles and hands the flask back after taking a swallow of his own.

It’s easy.

Too easy.

He’s gonna have to watch himself if he doesn’t want to get too close to someone other than his Charge.

\---------

When they get to San Francisco, everyone on the shuttle gets shepherded into giant lecture halls, PADDs already in place on the tiny desks. The guy from the shuttle seems to be keeping close to Lenaal’s side, and they end up sitting next to each other in the hall in spite of Lenaal’s attempts to separate himself from the boy.

The screen that pops up on the PADDs is clearly a test, and Lenaal really should have expected this, but he _hadn’t_. Luckily the training on the way here should be more than enough to get him through it.

Except.

Except now he can’t remember what information was information he should know and what was purely to train his brain to think like a Human and--

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, everything parses itself in his brain, information sorting and filing itself perfectly. Things a man his alleged age would know, things he wouldn’t. Things that would be automatic and things that would take digging. Things he’d have forgotten.

And somewhere, hiding away, the realization that they’d programmed a whole life into his brain while he was Under. And that Jocelyn--Joreno--was _beautiful_ , even though she looked nothing like what he thought of as such.

It was jarring, and lost him seven of the sixty-five Earth minutes assigned to the exam.

Still, once he recentered, and was able to think past the still-present haze of alcohol, the test itself was almost laughably easy, sections clearly split up between those that would be used to place their level and those that would be used to place them in a track--command, science, or operations--and even though Lenaal was pretty sure Command knew where they were going to place every single cadet before they even walked in the door, the test was a nice enough way to cover their asses.

So he played the game, even though he knew what was waiting for him at the end of the day regardless.

Or at least, he thought he did.

He did, right up until the test finished and, as they went to leave, the staff started separating everyone off by an algorithm that was not immediately clear to him, until the boy from the shuttle (Jon? Jem? Jim?) elbowed him and dragged them both off toward a group of slightly bulkier guys, grumbling about idiots that “don’t know size has nothing to do with it,” and oh.

 _Oh_.

They were being sorted into _weight classes_ because they were expected to _fight each other_. 

Well this was going to be a problem.

\--------

He sees the hit coming. That's the worst part. He sees the hit coming, and he should be able to react. But his training was for four arms and four legs and being a pair short on each leaves him laughably outmatched. So even though he gets his hands up to block it, he tries to brace himself on hind legs that aren't there and he goes flying instead. Even his opponent looks surprised that he was able to take Lenaal down so easily.

Leonard. He needs to get used to calling himself that, even just in his mind.

So, yes, everyone's a little taken aback by just how bad Leonard is at this.

After getting his ass handed to him by every single member of his weight class (and pointedly ignoring the way the kid was biting his lip trying not to laugh at him; was it really Lenaal’s fault that he kept forgetting he only had two arms? And how the hell is he supposed to keep his feet under him when he only has two of those as well?), the coordinator tugs him gently away from the rest and asks him quietly how much combat training he has. For all that Lenaal wants to claim the full three years of First training that had included mandatory thrice monthly sparring sessions, he knows that none of that will have translated to this body the way he expects it to, and so he has to answer with a grudging, “None.”

The coordinator looks more than a little skeptical, but nods, marking something down on her PADD. “Alright then, cadet, you can sit the rest of the sessions out,” then she turns away to talk to another group, and Lenaal lets out a sigh of relief.

It’ll mean getting placed in a lower-level hand-to-hand class, but it’ll be worth it to have even more time to adjust to having this body, not to mention another venue in which to remind everyone involved that if it gets to the point that they’re facing enemies ruthless enough to take out the medical professionals, whatever training he has won’t do him any good.

It probably won’t work any better than it did on Cenophia, but it’ll be nice to try again.

Jim, on the other hand, is putting down every person in their group without, apparently, breaking a sweat. Leonard could have told you with half a glance that he was going to be flashy as hell, but watching him fight is mesmerizing. He’s flashy, yes, but every move has a purpose. Even if it’s just to distract or confuse his opponent, there’s no wasted energy. It has Leonard wondering against his will what the kid’s story is, and Lenaal (Leonard, his name is Leonard) trying to fight down the curiosity, because he can’t afford any distractions on a mission like this. So he watches the boy with mild interest, and tries not to delve any deeper than that.

The second he tries to walk away, though, after being summarily dismissed by the coordinator, Jim stops him with a hand on his elbow.

“Leaving so soon, old man?”

Leonard raises an eyebrow, and Jim grins.

“Yeah, okay, I could have done better than that. Still.” He smirks. “You wanna grab a drink after this horse and pony show?”

Lenaal wants to say something about getting to his room, even though he’s pretty sure both of them came here with nothing but the clothes on their backs, but what comes out instead is “Only if you’re buying, kid.”

The kid laughs, and nods, darting back over to the ring when they call his name again. So Leonard lounges off to the side, watching the way Jim moves, admiring everything about his fighting style, and wondering why exactly the kid’s taken an interest in him.

\--------

He gets his answer an hour into what will prove to be a night of drinking, when Jim is starting to sway after the half-dozen shots he’d mainlined and the second beer he’s nursing.

“So, Bones. You’re hot.”

Leonard raises an eyebrow. “Bones?”

“Yeah, Bones. You said that’s all you had left after the divorce. Seems like an appropriate name.”

“Or you could call me Leonard like everybody else.” Everybody else that’s Human, that is.

“But where’s the fun in that? Besides,” he adds with a grin, “Bones fits you better.”

Leonard rolls his eyes and goes back to his whiskey, unimpressed as he had been the first day with the planet’s alcohol, and yet knowing it’s going to hit him harder tomorrow morning than anything on Cenophia does these days.

The kid’s still smiling at him, thoughtful and certain. “I stand by what I said though.”

“That Bones fits me better?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Oh?”

“You’re _hot_.”

Lenaal snorts, spinning his glass between his fingers. “Flattered, kid, but not interested.”

Jim tilts his head. “Huh.”

Lenaal glances over at him, taking a drink and saying nothing.

Jim just grins back. “Well alright then.”

\--------

The ‘Fleet has them in temporary housing while they figure out what to do with two half-cocked cadets that wandered their way onto a shuttle without regulation attire or attitude. Lenaal--Leonard--isn’t as surprised as he should be that they end up shoving the two of them together into a tiny room in the freshman dorms two days later. Jim’s all smiles and laughter when it isn’t late at night and Leonard catches him stumbling home drunk and smelling like sex. Those nights Leonard thinks about moving out. Filing a complaint with Housing and pulling rank using his forged Earth MD that could get him into a place of his own. It’s worse when Jim’s angry on top of everything else, when he comes in sparking at the eyes like whatever hell just got handed to him wasn’t enough to put the desire out of his lungs.

But Leonard ignores his protests, prodding at hurts and healing injuries until Jim starts to come down. Until he rests his head against Leonard’s neck and whispers out a quiet “Sorry, Bones,” as Leonard presses a sedative-filled hypo to his neck, easing him into sleep, and all Bones can do is tuck him into bed and wonder why the boy feels more like a friend than the infant he is.

He doesn’t ask questions. He just goes to his classes and takes his tests and gives Jim his hangover cures, patching him up from bar fights and training missions and tries not to think too hard about the person in gold that he’s supposed to be looking after rather than the one he is. It’s in Lenaal’s blood and bones to take care of people, so he’ll do that to the best of his ability, but he won’t get any more invested, because he can’t. It’s just not worth it.

There’s no way the person that can change the course of the universe is Jim Kirk.

\--------

It’s Jim.

It’s _Jim_.

Lenaal doesn’t know why they took two goddamn Earth months after his enlistment to tell him, but the guy he’s supposed to be helping is _Jim fucking Kirk_.

He can’t tell if he’s surprised or pissed off. All he knows is that the night he gets the call from Rena alerting him to that fact is only the second night he’s agreed to go out to a bar with Jim, ignoring the shocked look on the kid’s face when Leonard slams his book shut and grabs his coat to join him at the door, throwing a casual “The hell are you waiting for?” over his shoulder when Jim doesn’t immediately follow him out.

Jim blinks once, and then laughs, chasing after Leonard as soon as he locks the door behind them.

He slings an arm over Leonard’s shoulders, talking a mile a minute until they get to the bar, and then dragging him up to the bartender and ordering four shots, downing his first in a blink and raising an eyebrow in Leonard’s direction when he doesn’t immediately go for his own. But Leonard slaps on a grin and reaches for his drinks, swallowing them at a slightly more sedate pace and waving off the lime Jim offers him, still unused to the Earth custom of following hard liquor with any other taste.

Jim shrugs, licking the salt from the rim of his second shot, swallowing it, and grinning around two of the limes in Leonard’s place.

Leonard rolls his eyes before grabbing them another pair of shots, clinking his with Jim’s before turning to eye the crowd. He’s angry and his skin feels too tight in a way it hasn’t since those first few days and all he really wants is to get smashed or fucked or possibly both, and he can tell just by looking that this is the place to do it. Jim’s kicked him out more than once in favor of sex before; it’s high time Leonard returned the favor.

“Guy or girl?”

Leonard blinks, eyes slanting toward Jim, wondering what gave him away.

“You’ve got the Look, Bones, no matter how well you try to hide it. Guy or girl?”

Leonard shrugs. “Not picky tonight.”

Jim hums and joins Leonard in perusing the crowd. Leonard finds himself watching Jim almost as much as the few returned glances he’s noticed, intrigued by the way Jim settles so easily into this skin.

Eventually, though, Jim’s eyes light up as he catches on someone across the floor, and Leonard resigns himself to another night sleeping at the hospital in favor of Jim getting laid. The worst part is that he can’t even find it in himself to be mad about it, too busy being mad about other things.

Except he must have missed something in the exchange, because the guy in question turns to glance at Leonard. He gives Leonard an almost dismissive once over at first, only to stop and look him up and down again. Leonard’s not sure what the guy’s looking for, knows he’s not exactly in his prime by Human standards, but he knows that look, and he knows the way it gets hotter with every progressive inch it creeps up Leonard’s body. And that? That Leonard can work with.

Jim hands him two beers, and says simply “See you in class tomorrow, Bones.”

Leonard just catches himself before he turns to look at Jim, but he does carefully ask, “You sure, kid?”

“Hell yes. Go get some, Bones. Christen that goddamn bed of yours; it’s been looking lonely only having you to play with,” he adds, before weaving his way onto the dance floor.

Leonard knows that’s the go ahead, but he still feels like he should regret leaving Jim out to dry. But Jim’s the one that made this happen, and Leonard knows better than to get in the way of one of Jim’s plans, so he weaves his way purposefully across the room, offering the guy in question one of the two beers. He takes it with a smirk, tipping his head back and taking a slow swallow.

He’s not Human, that much is obvious from the silvery tint of his skin, and Leonard tries not to ache with the way the want surges in his belly knowing that this is closer to what he wants than the guy knows.

“Leonard,” he offers, tapping the neck of his bottle against the other man’s.

“Kavarra.”

Lenaal raises an eyebrow. “ _From Bartal?_ ”

The man’s interest seems to jump up another notch. “ _You speak my language._ ”

“ _Only a little._ ”

“ _A little is more than most of your kind can say._ ”

Lenaal tries not to flinch, not wanting to give away that he isn’t exactly all that he seems. “ _True. But we all have our secrets. Our reasons._ ”

“ _Indeed._ ” Kavarra takes another few swallows of his drink, and Lenaal follows suit. “ _Why San Francisco?_ ”

It takes Leonard a moment to remember that he’s in civvies, that he can be whoever he wants if he’s willing to risk letting this man take him home with him instead of the other way around. Could tell something close to the actual truth and tell him it’s for work. But in the end, he settles on the cover story. “ _I’m with the ‘Fleet. Newly recruited. Second career, after the first one didn’t quite work out. You?_ ” he interjects before Kavarra can press.

“ _Work._ ”

It’s appropriately vague, and leaves Leonard curious, but not enough to press. “ _You enjoy what you do?_ ”

“ _It pays the bills._ ”

Leonard snorts and takes another swallow of his drink. “ _I know how that feels._ ”

Kavarra smirks, and reaches over, hand tracing along Leonard’s arm. “ _Do I have to ask you to dance, or can we just get out of here?_ ”

Leonard downs the rest of his drink. “ _Let’s get out of here._ ”

He doesn’t miss the thumbs up Jim tosses his way on his way out.

\--------

When Jim wanders through the common room before classes the next day, Leonard’s cooking. The thorough fucking he’d gotten had been enough to start to settle him back into this skin, but being in the kitchen was always the last way to really, finally, feel normal again. He’s got his eye on the eggs, which is why he doesn’t notice at first that Jim’s banged all to hell. But then he catches the angry red of a bruise out of the corner of his eye and suddenly breakfast’s the last thing on his mind.

“Jesus, Jim,” he whispers, taking the eggs off the heat and turning to face his roommate fully. “The hell did you get up to after I left last night?” He’s already moving into their dorm toward the medikit they keep in the bedroom, shooing Jim ahead of him and into a seated position on his bed to look him over properly when Jim speaks.

“Coupl’a guys took exception to my face, near as I could tell.”

Leonard sighs, tipping Jim’s head back to get a better look at the bruising. “Somehow I think there’s more to it than that.”

Jim just hums and lets himself be manhandled.

“Looks like it’s mostly just the bruising,” Leonard offers, reaching into the medikit for the regen, “but you should really--”

“No, Bones.”

It’s an old argument, one Leonard knows he’ll probably never win, but it never stops him from trying. “I just really think having an on-duty--”

“They’re not half as good as you are at your job, Bones, and you know it.”

Leonard purses his lips, fighting down the response that there’s really only so much he can do with this equipment, and if Jim would just go in--

But he’s a tough guy, typical command track, with the guts and the physical reserves to back up his recklessness. Truth be told, he probably wouldn’t even be getting treated at all if Lenaal didn’t insist on doing it himself. So Leonard just patches him up as best he can and eases them both back into the common area, starting breakfast over again.

Jim seems to take the silence as permission, and grins through a split lip. “So, that guy last night. Any good?”

Leonard rolls his eyes. “I don’t kiss and tell, Jim,” he answers, the idiom rolling off his tongue automatically.

“Aw, come on, Bones, that’s no fair! I tell you all about--”

“And I usually don’t listen, Jim. I have no desire to know what the hell you get up to in your free time; your choice to try to regale me with those stories is entirely your own.”

Jim just laughs, and accepts his breakfast with grace and a ceasefire of questioning.

\--------

The thing is, now that Lenaal knows Jim’s the person he’s supposed to be looking after, all of their interactions take on a different tint. Things that used to be friendly are suddenly too friendly in the new context; things that should be cordial and distant between a First and a Charge are already so ingrained in the life he shares with Jim that he can’t dial them back.

It leaves him floundering and confused for days, and Jim starts to notice.

“Is this about me hooking you up with that guy last weekend? Because you seemed pretty into it.”

Against his better judgement, Lenaal grins. “Oh, I was.”

Jim’s face clears a little. “Then what’s wrong?”

Lenaal curls his lips into his mouth, a much stranger feeling than it is in his normal body, before huffing out a sigh. “It’s complicated.”

Jim blinks. “Complicated?”

And, shit, Lenaal didn’t mean to let it get like this. He’s supposed to be as discreet an influence in Jim’s life as possible. Impact it, yes, but without drawing too much attention to himself. Granted, that was going to be impossible pretty much from day one, but he feels like he has to try. So he shrugs. “Just. Bullshit with the ex-wife.”

He’ll have to apologize to Joreno at some point, but the way Jim winces, nods, and lets it go is enough to have him willing to let the lie build.

\--------

_Besides, the “Jocelyn” they built into his head actually was kind of terrible in the divorce, even if the man he’s supposed to be did plenty of damage himself. He wonders a little who thought to put that much detail into a cover personality. But, really, it’s none of his business._

_He just has to do his job._

\--------

The Intro Xenobiology coursework Leonard has to take to round out the basic Human MD the Council had furnished him with is almost laughably easy, but it’s also tedious enough that he’d found himself getting frustrated over the simplest things from the very beginning. Knowing what he now does about his responsibilities makes it even harder.

Jim, for his part, scarcely seems to be doing anything scholastic, spending three out of five nights out on the town, getting drunk and into enough fistfights that Leonard wonders if there’s _anyone_ in the city he hasn’t gotten into a brawl with. In theory, this should make Leonard’s job easy--he just needs to get Jim on a ship in one piece, and the rest will take care of itself.

In practice, this is much harder than it sounds.

Jim’s alternates between being complacent and absolutely vicious on those too-frequent nights he comes back smelling like smoke and booze, fighting Leonard with words when he can’t fight him with his fists, because Leonard’s doing what he can to minimize the damage.

Jim has too many scars already.

It takes one particularly bad night in November, after three seminars and a nine hour shift at the clinic only to come home to a bloody and angry Jim for Leonard to snap.

“What are you even doing here, if you’re just going to spend every night getting your face punched in? That shit won’t fly with the ‘Fleet. The only reason you’ve made it this long is because--” He cuts himself off, but Jim clearly hears the words, if the way he’s sneering at Leonard is any indication.

“Because you’ve decided to make me some sort of pity project?”

Leonard doesn’t flinch, but only just. Instead, he meets Jim’s gaze head on. “Because I’m here, Jim,” he says quietly. Jim does flinch at that, a harsh, full body sort of motion. Leonard just goes on watching him, wondering what exactly his story is. “I’m right here, Jim, and I’m going to go on being right here unless you tell me to leave.”

Jim doesn’t look at him for a while, clearly contemplating this. He swallows, glances at Leonard, and then glances away again just as quickly. Then, tentatively, he reaches for Leonard’s medikit and passes it to him, still averting his eyes. “I’m--”

“Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it. Not if you’re not going to make a change, Jim. I don’t care if this is who you are, but you’re not going to make it in command if you don’t sort your shit out.” He grabs his tricorder, tilting Jim’s head to run it over his temple and down along his neck and arm. “You need to be able to run a crew, Jim, and it’s obvious to me that you _can_.” The readings give him the all clear to run a quick regen over Jim’s injuries, indicating nothing else to worry about. “You just need to decide that you _want to_.”

He’s quiet as he finishes patching Jim up, routine far too familiar at this point. It isn’t until he finishes that he realizes that Jim’s been staring at him with wide, confused eyes the whole time. Leonard just gives him a crooked smile and starts to put the kit away, when Jim grabs at his wrist, stopping him mid-motion. “I’m not--” He glances away, as though gathering his courage, before turning back to look Leonard in the eye. “I’m not going to apologize for who I am, Bones. I jump in without thinking, and I’ll fight someone before I’ll reason with them way more than I should. But. But I _am_ sorry for what I’ve put you through. You deserve better than a roommate that’s such a mess.”

Leonard only just manages to keep from rolling his eyes, but his amusement must come through anyway, because Jim gives him a rueful smile.

“I’m not going to change overnight, Bones. But I’m going to try. You’re right, I came here to do something better than what I was doing before. And right now, I’m not. So I’m going to make a change.”

Leonard nods. “Alright, then.”

\--------

Studying together becomes a more common occurrence, Leonard coming home from long shifts at the hospital to find Jim already settled on his bed, PADDs in a semicircle around him while he moves smoothly from reading something on one to checking a reference on another to typing on the one in his lap. More than once, Leonard catches himself just watching Jim work for a solid five minutes before he settles into his own routine, Jim grinning up at him when he does.

The second to last week of classes for the semester, Leonard catches Jim smirking at the end of their last Intro to Protocol class when they get their final papers back. He quirks an eyebrow at him, and when Jim catches him looking, he flips his PADD around to show Leonard the full marks and the _Much better work, Mr. Kirk_ at the top.

“Is that the one--”

“I spent six hours on last weekend? Damn right it is. Wanna go out and celebrate?”

Leonard’s been down to only getting kicked out of the room once a week lately, and only had to patch Jim up once since their little spat, and he’s been grateful for it. He doesn’t want to invite trouble. Still, he doesn’t want to dissuade Jim’s newfound drive either, so he grins and says, “Why the hell not?”

Jim looks appropriately surprised, but recovers quickly enough, grinning back. “ _Awesome_.”

\--------

Leonard lets Jim pick the bar, figuring he knows the scene better than Leonard himself, and is surprised when Jim takes them to a quieter place, where he grins at the bartender, and she grins right back, sliding a shot across the bar to him before quirking an eyebrow in Leonard’s direction.

Jim laughs. “Celia, this is Leonard McCoy. Bones, this is Celia.”

The bartender suddenly seems a lot more interested in him, extending a hand over the bar to him. “This is the elusive roommate?” Leonard slants suspicious eyes in Jim’s direction, but he’s chosen that moment to down his shot, so Leonard reaches out to kiss the back of her hand instead, Human instincts taking over.

“That’d be me. Pleasure.”

She giggles, and withdraws her hand. “I hear I have you to thank for seeing more of this lovely gentleman in my bar.”

Leonard quirks an eyebrow in Jim’s direction, and he shrugs. “She threw me out on my ass herself the first time I tried to start something in here. Told me that the next time I tried that shit she’d do a hell of a lot worse.” Jim grins a little at that. “Most of the rest of them would rather let the ‘Fleet handle me, but she swore up and down she’d have none of that.”

Leonard turns to face Jim fully at that, but Celia’s laughing, and it distracts him enough that he turns back to her. “You sure know how to flatter a girl, Jim.”

And then Jim’s laughing right back and ordering Leonard a bourbon and a beer for himself and ushering Leonard away from the bar before he can get another question in. He settles them into a table at the back of the room, Jim with his back to the wall and Leonard easing in beside him.

Leonard considers waiting Jim out, but his curiosity gets the better of him. “What did you mean, ‘let the ‘Fleet handle you’?”

Jim takes his time answering, taking a few swallows of his beer. Leonard’s patient, though, willing to wait for Jim to offer up an answer of his own. And he will.

Eventually.

Jim sighs, settling his beer on the table and leaning on it, gaze fixed on Celia as he starts to speak. “When we first got here... well, you saw me. I’d come home from a night out beat all to hell, because that was the easiest way to just forget, for a while. And the bartenders around here know to report that kind of thing to the ‘Fleet when it involves a cadet. I didn’t bother with fake IDs once we got here because I figured it’d be more trouble than they were worth. Turns out I may have gotten that backwards.” He laughs dryly, downing another swallow before he continues. “At any rate, most of them didn’t even bother trying to keep me in line, figuring the ‘Fleet would do that for them. Celia was always a different story.”

Leonard frowns, trying to fill in the blanks Jim’s obviously leaving. “This is where you come when you’re just looking for a quiet drink.”

Jim grins from around his bottle. “Got that right.”

“I figured... I mean, tonight of all nights I figured you’d want to go all out.”

Jim lowers his drink, looking at Leonard with a wrinkled brow. “I just. I figured this would be more your scene.”

“It is. But we’re not celebrating _me_ , Jim. We’re celebrating you.”

Jim’s smile is quiet in a way that belies a deep amusement. “I’m good, Bones.”

Leonard stares at him for a moment longer before shrugging and taking a swallow of his own drink. No reason to push if this is what Jim wants.

\--------

The semester comes to an end quicker than Leonard was expecting, and it isn’t until he turns in his last paper that he realizes he has no idea what he’s going to do for the seventeen days they have off from classes.

Well, aside from the hours at the hospital that he’s agreed to take.

Jim looks surprised when he mentions this.

“You’re not going back to Georgia?”

Leonard raises an eyebrow. “Why the hell would I do that, Kid?”

Jim shrugs. “I just. Isn’t your family all still back there?”

“You mean like the wife that left me?”

“No. I mean like brothers. Sisters.” He looks away. “Parents.”

Leonard looks away himself at the quiet in Jim’s voice, protocol taking over as he sorts through the faked memories for a reason not to go.

What he finds almost makes him not want to answer.

“My dad’s dead, and my mom and I... we haven’t seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things since he died.” _How much did the Forger take from my own life? How much did Rena_ tell _them?_

“Oh.” Then, like he’s afraid to push, “No siblings?”

“Only child,” he confirms. Then, an image that leaves him aching pops up behind his eyes. “Not that I wouldn’t love to go see...” Then he sighs. “But there’s no point in all that, really.”

Jim’s on his feet, circling in front of Leonard. “See who, Bones?”

And it’s looking into the softness there that makes Leonard cave and give Jim the first key to all that he’s been hiding. “My daughter.”

Jim reels back. “ _Daughter_?”

Leonard gives him a tired smile, and wonders, not for the first time, if this is how he’d have felt if things had gone this way with Jenarel. “Jocelyn got full custody rights. There were... questions during the settlement about my ability to raise her. And, well, you saw what I was like. I was in no state to argue, and I didn’t give my lawyer much to work with. So Joce got full custody, and I got...” He finds himself gesturing vaguely around the room, at the life he’s slowly letting himself build here.

“You got this.”

Leonard startles at the understanding in Jim’s voice. Then he lets his face soften. “Yeah. I got this.”

Jim just stares at him for a long time. Then, soft, as though not daring to break the silence, he asks. “What’s her name?”

 _Jenarel._ “Joanna. Her name’s Joanna.”

Jim smiles. “That’s a beautiful name.”

 _It is. But it’s a lie._ “Thank you.”

“Do you have holos?”

Leonard swallows. “Somewhere. But I haven’t had the… I haven’t taken them out lately.”

Jim nods. “I understand.”

Neither of them says anything else.

\--------

Leonard comes back from his third double shift eight days into vacation, aching and tired, to find Jim waiting for him with a frown on his face.

“How many shifts are you working over the break, Bones?”

Leonard blinks. Honestly, he hadn’t counted, agreeing to take on whatever his colleagues asked him to. He’d had nowhere else he’d been looking to go, no other reason to be away from the hospital, and if he can do some good there while he’s spinning his wheels with Jim, then why the hell not? It hurts less now than it had in September, watching people die that he could have saved with four hands and the simplest of ranathors and cerians. The more he can accustom himself to it, the better. So he just shrugs. “Enough.”

Jim scoffs and gets to his feet. “That’s bullshit, Bones. You’re working yourself _to_ the bone, and you’re not--”

Leonard blinks again, slowly, trying to understand where Jim’s coming from. He operated on six different patients today; his brain isn’t quite working up to speed.

Jim’s face goes red at whatever he sees in Leonard’s face, and he grabs his jacket and storms out the door.

It’s the last time Leonard sees him for days.

\--------

He really should go look for Jim. Lenaal knows this. But he has responsibilities at the hospital and he can’t just leave them behind to chase Jim down. He _can’t_. He doesn’t have the time or the skills right now. Jim’s a fool, but he’s not _stupid_ , and Lenaal knows that he knows better than to get himself killed.

So he goes to work and he comes back to the dorm and doesn’t think too hard about why he’s here. He just does his job.

He’s just a Healer, after all.

\--------

When Jim comes back on Sunday with a helmet in his hand, it’s to find Lenaal drinking steadily from their shared liquor supply. He stands in the doorway, just watching, and Lenaal finds himself staring back. Neither of them says anything. It’s too easy to go on pouring the whiskey from bottle to tumbler and past his lips, keeping his eyes on Jim’s as he does.

Jim doesn’t move to stop him.

Eventually, he joins in.

When they wander back into the bedroom, Lenaal finds himself still staring across the empty space between them.

“They offered me housing with the medical staff next semester.”

Jim closes his eyes, pain lining his features.

“I turned them down.”

“Go to sleep, Bones.”

He does.

\--------

Leonard wakes to a pounding headache the next morning, unable to remember, at first, what had sent him to the liquor cabinet the night before. The memory of Monquerrel’s offer hits him the second his eyes catch on Jim moving around the kitchen with far more ease than Leonard would have expected after the previous night.

_”Aren’t you tired of living with that cadet? He can’t possibly understand the stress of this job. Why don’t you move into medical housing? At least there you’ll get some sympathy. Don’t you want that? Aren’t you tired of him?”_

Because the thing is. The thing is, he _is_ tired. But not of Jim. He’s tired of this mission, of this planet, of this _useless_ body and the _useless_ tech and the way he can’t do half again as much as he was doing by the time he was 68 on Cenophia, how he’s crippled by his situation at every turn and watching that child die on his table yesterday should have been the last straw.

Instead, all he’d wanted was to find Jim in their apartment when he got home to remind him why he was doing this.

He doesn’t notice he’s shaking until Jim wraps callused hands around one of his, pressing a thumb against his palm, trying to rub out tension he hadn’t even known he was holding there. Leonard stands there, watching, motionless, as Jim finishes with the first hand and moves on to the next one.

“How did you do it, Bones? How did you go on standing by me when I was falling apart on you?”

Leonard just stares at him.

“I was a mess. I was worthless. I was _useless_. But you stood right here and waited, gave me the kick in the ass I needed so I could do what I came here to do. You were so patient for so long. How did you do that? Because I’ve been trying, Bones, and I just… I _can’t_.”

For a while, Leonard doesn’t have the words to answer. He slips his hand from Jim’s grip, staring at it instead of him. “I just. I trusted. I trusted what I thought when I first saw you. I trusted that you were a good, strong man, that could do what it took to be everything he could be. I just. I trusted you.”

He steps back from Jim, walking through the kitchen to pour his coffee, and maneuvering around Jim every time he tries to intercept him. Jim lets him get away with it for a full minute before,

“Bones, please, just… Just stop moving for a minute.”

Leonard does, meeting Jim’s eyes. “Yes?”

Jim swallows. “I… I want to be worth it. I want to show you that you made the right decision. I want to live up to your expectations. But I can’t do it if you’re falling apart at the seams yourself.”

They’re far from the words he was expecting to hear, and Leonard frowns. “What?”

“Working double shifts, running yourself ragged… I can’t watch you do that anymore, Bones. I need you to take care of yourself as much as I need you to take care of me. So please. Just for today. Don’t go in.”

The words are slow to penetrate his brain, and when they finally do settle in, they don’t make a lot of sense. What is considered a double shift here is nothing on Cenophia; he can handle it just fine.

Or maybe.

Or maybe he can’t.

Maybe the fatigue is why he lost that child the day before. Maybe. Maybe this body is more Human than he thought.

Maybe Jim’s right.

He swallows. “I’ll call Monquerrel.”

Jim’s smile is wide and immediate.

\--------

Returning to work after two full days’ rest means more than it has any right to. He’s not sure if it’s because he wants to be doing what he does best again, or because being with Jim reminded him why he’s doing it at a disadvantage.

Leonard forgets, sometimes, that he liked Jim even before he found out that keeping an eye on him was his job. Being reminded never hurts.

So remembering that working with two hands instead of one means he can be there to help Jim with his homework. Remembering that having only a tricorder means he can run said tricorder over Jim's form to check his vitals. Remembering that relearning old, worn information means he can heal Jim all the better. It never hurts. It helps. It lets him feel a bit more settled. It lets him balance on two legs. It lets him do his job.

\--------

As glad as he is to be done with Intro Xenobio, Leonard’s looking forward to the Culture and First Contact class even less than the Policy seminar last semester. Still, Jim’s in his small group this semester (and he can’t help but wonder if they were supposed to be or if Jim-- but he shakes it off. It’s really none of his business, even if his gut tells him it is) which he knows will make for a much more colorful class than last semester.

His Medical track coursework is a study in the archaic; tricorders that only give half the data he’s used to seeing and sixteen different types of regen instead of the single one he’s used to. Still, the coursework assures him time at the hospital, which gives him more and more time to accustom himself to working with two hands. He’s only tried to reach for something with a hand he doesn’t possess once in the last week, which is an improvement over his constant frustration of the first month.

But the most settling thing of all is the infrequency with which he now has to treat Jim. He tries not to think too hard about why it makes such a difference, chalking it up to his mission. Less dangerous that way.

He knows that’s not why.

\--------

Jim offers him the extra helmet he keeps for his bike for the first time after their last class the Friday before spring break. He doesn’t have to say anything for Leonard to know it’s an offer he doesn’t extend lightly.

Still, Lenard stares at the helmet, thinking of the Human's relative lack of regard for safety, for long enough that it starts to shake in Jim's hand. Not a lot, but enough that Leonard notices. The second he does, he reaches out takes the helmet from Jim's grip, sliding it easily under his arm as he gets to his feet. "Where are we going?"

Jim's face relaxes. "Somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere that's not here."

Leonard grins. "Lead the way."

\--------

It's not that he's unfamiliar with mountains. Or stars. Or star _gazing_. Cenophia isn't a large planet, but it has its wonders.

But as he clings to Jim's back as he eases them into Yosemite, Leonard realizes he's never been stargazing in this sector of the universe. He wonders if Jim will notice. He wonders if he'll care.

As Jim sets up their campsite, Leonard finds his eyes drawn to him again and again. He moves with the air of one that has done this many times before, and it leaves some part of Leonard aching in a way he doesn't quite understand. So instead he just does his part setting everything up.

Lying beside Jim the third night in, watching the stars cross the sky, is the calmest Leonard has felt in far too long.

Jim turns to look at him, and Leonard turns to meet his gaze. He opens his mouth to say... _something_ , before slowly closing it, eyes burning with something indecipherable.

Leonard slides his hand into Jim’s, staring back.

“Are you happy, Bones?”

Leonard looks back at him, trying to decipher the meaning behind the question before realizing it doesn’t matter. “Yeah.”

Jim looks like he’s never heard a better word.

\--------

"Why did you leave Georgia?"

Secrets flow so much easier miles from the city in the dark beneath the stars.

"What did she mean to you?"

Words he'd never dare to speak otherwise.

"Why Starfleet?"

Every question aches.

"Why me?"

Above all the ones that are unspoken. The ones he can't answer.

_Who are you?_

\--------

When they get back ten days after they left, he feels more like _Bones_ than he does Leonard. He knows it should worry him.

It doesn’t.

\--------

Monquerrel asks Bones to cover her call for two weeks in April while she goes to a conference that may help her with her research, and he’s more than willing to agree. It comes a week and a half after his midterms, meaning he has less on his plate than normal. Still, the hours are long, and he finds himself getting home later and later.

Jim’s starting to eye him worriedly around day six, so he tries to keep to a decent schedule, but it feels like it’s always surgery after surgery after surgery and he comes home with aching hands and a heavy heart.

And Jim’s always there, silent, thumbs strong on his palms.

Lenaal’s always been fascinated by hands. Both his own normal six fingered ones, and those that he’s acquired on missions. These, five-fingered and small, are both perfect and terrible. Their size makes them much better for surgery than his overlarge second pair back home, but the joint structure leaves them prone to damage that would be devastating if this were truly his body. For all that he knows any damage won’t follow him back, the thought of losing his one power here is enough to have him doing his damnedest to keep them safe and protected.

Jim plays no small part in that.

It’s strangely intimate, and Lenaal knows better than to get this attached to a Charge, but he can’t help it. Jim gave him a name that fits him better than the one his own people furnished this body with, and it’s that alone that makes him feel at home here. There is so much wrong with that, but he can’t even find it in himself to care. He doesn’t try.

\--------

Culture and First Contact is just as much an exercise in Human superiority as he had expected it to be. The instructor speaks of not disrupting the natural course of a planet's path, of waiting and watching, of preserving every species' integrity. But Lenaal knows better than most that sometimes a little intervention is necessary, and finds himself gripping his PADD harder than absolutely necessary more than once. The third time it happens, Jim casts him a confused look, and Bones forces himself to loosen his grip and breathe, trying to calm the anger in his gut.

Jim catches his elbow on the way out of small group that day. "You were quiet today."

Bones shrugs, and carefully doesn't comment. Jim will probably push, but Bones doesn't want to tempt fate by opening up this can of worms on his own.

Jim doesn't disappoint. "Look, I know all the rules about First Contact are bullshit, but if we want to stay a part of the Federation, we at least have to pretend to agree with them.”

Bones snorts. "It's all politics, and politics is the most bullshit out of all the bullshit professions."

"Even more than divorce lawyers?"

Bones cuts a sharp glance over to Jim. It's more of an allusion to the secrets they shared in Yosemite than he cares to hear right now, and Jim seems to realize it, wincing as he looks away.

"Sorry. That was uncalled for."

Bones stares at him for a moment before taking pity on him. "Yes. Even more than divorce lawyers."

Jim cracks a tiny smile. "Can't say I disagree with you there, Bones."

Bones just smirks right back.

\--------

Even his Human memories of second semesters have faded to where he's forgotten how quickly everything happens after spring break. Finals are bearing down on them before he's really ready, and he finds himself relying on Jim more and more as he preps for their CFC final. It seems that Jim dedicates himself to things he hates just as readily as he does those he loves, because his knowledge of First Contact protocol is almost terrifyingly extensive. Still, Bones isn't complaining, relying on it as much as resenting it.

The dismissal of everything he's spent his life doing grates on him daily. There are times where interference is not just helpful but _crucial_ in maintaining the positive forward path of a planet, and Lenaal has the evidence to prove it. So being told constantly not to interfere makes him itch in his Council-issued skin.

If he notices, Jim never comments on it, just easing the PADD with his notes across the table to Bones whenever they find that he's missing a section from being too angry to take anything down. Bones gets impossibly good at deciphering Jim's shorthand as a result.

It’s an imperfect system, and Bones struggles almost every step of the way, but there’s something altogether too comforting about coming home every night to his Charge, able to smile tiredly and make the best of what he has.

When he passes by the skin of his teeth, he's certain to take Jim out for drinks, and make sure he knows he has the room for the night. An evening in the intern's lounge at the hospital is hardly a difficult price to pay.

\--------

They don't discuss staying behind for the summer. Bones knows Jim's staying to make sure he can graduate in three years, and Jim seems to sense that Bones has no intention of going back to Georgia. So Bones signs the lease on a new apartment and Jim follows easily and the next thing either of them knows, they're up to their eyes in summer coursework, seeing each other as little as they had the spring before. Bones takes his shifts at the hospital with due diligence, and Jim spends all his time in the library, working through his three separate condensed courses. It's a kind of concentration that Bones has slowly accustomed himself to seeing in the set of Jim’s shoulders.

It’s the kind of concentration that reminds him that Jim is going to be the best captain Starfleet has ever seen one day.

\--------

And then, a month into fall term, he decides to take the Kobayashi Maru.

\--------

It's a disaster. There's no two ways about it; Jim's Maru run is an unmitigated _disaster_.

Bones had spent the entire afternoon sitting in their room trying to study, unable to move his eyes past the first frame of this reading, impatient to learn just how badly the session goes.

The look on Jim's face when he slams into the room tells him more than enough.

Bones gets to his feet, one hand wrapping firmly around Jim's upper arm. "We going out tonight?"

For a second, it looks like Jim might agree. In the end, though, he just slumps forward, leaning his forehead against Bones' shoulder. "Not tonight. Tonight I just..." He sighs. "Not tonight."

Bones reaches up, threading gentle fingers through the hair at Jim's nape. "Okay, Jim. Okay."

\--------

It takes three days before Jim finally broaches the topic, and when he does, it's not in the way Bones was expecting.

"I want you on the helm the next time I take the test."

Bones is less surprised than he should be that Jim's already looking toward his next challenge, inventing one when one does not immediately more sent itself. "I'm not trained."

Jim shrugs. "So get trained. I want you on the helm when I take the test again."

"And what," Bones asks, altogether too tired for this, "makes you think they'll _let_ you take the test again?"

Jim smiles tightly. "There's always loopholes."

Bones sighs, turning back to his meal, and resigns himself to a extra course spring term.

\--------

He’s careful not to take on too much over winter break this time around. The memory of Jim’s eyes the last time around is more than enough of a deterrent.

So when Jim disappears around the same time he did last year (has it been that long already?), Bones has the time to go after him. He isn't as surprised as he thinks he should be to find Jim at Celia's, twirling a tumbler and staring at nothing.

Bones signals to Celia, and she brings a beer over for him, glancing pointedly at Jim as she does.

Bones just shrugs. He's as in the dark as she is.

Jim leans forward, pressing his cheek to the bar as he looks over at Bones. "Y'followed me this time."

"'Course I did."

"You didn't last year."

Bones grimaces. "Had a lot on my mind this time last year."

Jim's smile is loose and easy. "D'you know, that was the first year I didn't get completely smashed on the anniversary. Had to prove to myself I was worth whatever you'd give me when I got back."

Bones feels the frown mar his forehead. "Anniversary of what, Kid?"

Jim's face slides into a drunken sort of smile. "Like you don't know."

He's about to insist that he doesn't know when Celia's hand flies to her mouth, shock and sorrow playing over her features. She reaches out, tentative, to place her hand over Jim's. "Who did you lose?"

For a long moment, Jim looks impossibly young. For a longer moment, Bones lets himself remember he is. By Human standards as well as Cenophian ones.

Then he opens his mouth and whispers, "My father."

Celia nods. "My brother was on board. I was fifteen."

"Yeah?" Jim's face is wry. "I was born on a shuttle on its way out." When Celia's eyes go wide with recognition, he bites out, "My dad's George Kirk. Captain of the USS Kelvin for twelve minutes. And I'm the good-for-nothing son he left behind."

There's a weary sort of tightness around Jim's lips as he spits these words out that leaves Celia even more wide-eyed than before. Bones just sighs, levering Jim to his feet and passing her his chip to cover Jim's tab. She takes it automatically, both of them ignoring Jim's protests that he can pay for his own liquor.

On their way out, Celia's sure to get in the parting shot. "Just don't you dare be a stranger, James Kirk. You owe me a story and a half for that one."

It isn't until they're halfway back to campus that the name finally clicks.

The Kelvin was the ship the Narada had destroyed when it first crossed into this dimension.

Suddenly, so much more about this assignment makes sense.

\--------

When Jim wakes up and stumbles into the living room to stare at Bones, wide-eyed and confused, Bones doesn't say, "Your dad saved hundreds of lives." Jim already knows that.

He doesn't say, "Your dad didn't leave behind a good-for-nothing son." Jim won't hear that.

He doesn't say, "Your dad is the reason I'm here." Jim can't know that.

All he does is hold out Jim's helmet like a peace offering, and ask "Where are we going?"

The way Jim's brittle smile softens for just a moment is enough to assure him this is the right course of action.

\--------

Jim takes them across the border into Nevada, where they stare up at stars that Lenaal is slowly learning to recognize and Bones already feels like he knows by heart.

They don't say anything. They don't need to.

\--------

After a winter break with more upheaval than Bones had expected, spring term is a welcome return to normalcy.

The Aviation courses Jim frowns at him until he enrolls in are less welcome.

It’s one thing to fly in ships that have had thousands of years to be perfected and made as safe as possible, and another thing altogether to learn to fly the primitive ships that Humans seem to think of as sufficient.

After the first time he goes up in a full-fledged beast, he can’t stand the thought of looking at Jim, and ends up going out and getting laid instead. It’s been too long, and he deserves it after what he’s putting himself through for Jim.

The serious look on Jim’s face when he gets back the next morning to change before his shift at the hospital stops him short.

“Bones, if you didn’t want to--”

Bones sighs, reaching out to ruffle Jim’s hair, affection surging sudden and strange. “You asked me to, Kid. I’m not going to back out. If you want me there--”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll be there. For as long as I can.”

The look on Jim’s face makes Bones wonder for a moment if he’s promised too much. But it’s nothing more than the truth.

As long as he can stand beside Jim, he will.

It’s his job.

\--------

(If it’s what he’s starting to suspect he wants as well, no one has to know but him.)

\--------

Summer's harder the second time around. Jim pushes and pushes and pushes until they let him do his Command track-required tour of duty a year early (and that must be what the three extra courses last summer were for), leaving Bones behind to watch the apartment and slog his way through his own set of summer courses.

Jim leaves him comms from time to time, and Bones clings to the sense of sanity he brings in the wake of his over-long hospital hours and coursework. Jim's the reason he's here. And he's worth it.

\--------

Jim comes back for fall term tired, but shining like he's never seen anything as amazing as the stars he's just come back from. It leaves Bones aching and wishing he could have been there to see what put that look on his face.

Wishing he could love it the way Jim does.

But it's the stars, and the stars will never be his the way they're Jim's. So instead he reaches out and wraps Jim up in his arms, whispering, "Welcome home."

Jim buries his face in Bones' neck. "Thanks." Then, with a slow, shaking breath, he asks, "You ready to take on the world with me?

Bones just holds on tight.

\--------

It's a year to the day since he took the Maru the first time. This time, Bones is on the simulated bridge with him when it all goes to hell.

This time, Jim lets him drown them both in alcohol after the fact.

\--------

They don't share any courses that fall, both so deep into their respective tracks that there's no overlap, and their schedules are so diametrically opposed that Bones really only sees Jim on the weekends, both of them up to their eyes in studying, and the one night a week (Tuesdays) when they make sure to have dinner together. They don't talk much, mostly just reminding themselves that they're not alone in the sprawling mess of the 'Fleet.

And then Bones goes to the hospital for his shift, and Jim retreats to his room to study and their paths don't cross again until Saturday, Jim out on late night training missions when Bones is home, Bones at the hospital when Jim's home. But they carve out time for each other and make sure they're sane and slowly, slowly forge their way through the semester.

\--------

Winter break finds Bones with exactly zero shifts at the hospital, and a road trip with Jim taking their place. For all that he and Jim have changed in the last year, the stars haven't. It's a quiet sort of constant that makes Bones stop and realize how long he's been here. Makes him wonder what his purpose is, now that he's been here so long.

The way the pinch around Jim's eyes lessens with each day that passes makes Bones wonder if he even cares.

\--------

The date creeps up on him early on in spring semester, but something in his blood reminds him what day it is when it arrives. Birthdays have always been quiet affairs in the Dorel household, but this… this is Jenarel. And his absence burns in his gut almost as sharp as the bourbon he pours down his throat the second he gets home. It’s the strongest reminder yet that he wasn’t supposed to be gone this long.

As the too many Earth days that cover her birthday back home come to an end, he finds himself getting more and more short-tempered. As the final day creeps past, he opens the liquor cabinet and gives in.

He slams his tumbler down on the counter and stares at it for a long minute, feeling unfamiliar hatred well up in his gut. For Rena. For the Council. For Jim, of all people. He became a First to protect his daughter, to give her the life that she deserved, not to be an absent father on her birthday.

Jim finds him there, still standing in the kitchen, staring unseeing at the bottle beside him, hating the situation.

“Bones?”

Lenaal looks up at him, shaking off his melancholy. “Yes, Jim?”

Jim approaches him cautiously. “Is… is everything okay?”

Lenaal blinks. Then he smirks a little, hiding behind that. “Sure, Kid.”

Jim draws up close, fingers twitching toward him. “Bones…”

Lenaal sighs. “It’s Joanna’s birthday today.”

Jim’s eyes go wide. “You never… you didn’t say anything last year. _Or_ the year before.”

 _That’s because a year takes longer on Cenophia_. “Maybe I just hid it better.”

Something flashes over Jim’s face too fast for Lenaal to catch. “Have you commed her yet?”

Lenaal shrugs.

“Don’t tell me--”

Lenaal feels his lips draws up in a wry smirk and lets the lie build. “Settlement prohibits it.”

Jim huffs out a breath. “That’s bullshit.”

Lenaal shrugs. “That’s divorce.”

Jim’s eyes go a little distant before he joins Lenaal at the counter, stealing his tumbler and pouring and downing a glass of his own. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

\--------

_You could have called._

Lenaal flinches away from the gentle admonishment from Rena. _What good would it have done? I’m still gone. What would a call from me even have meant?_

_What would it have meant to you?_

Lenaal doesn’t have an answer.

_Call._

The instructions to do so filter through and, in a daze, he sneaks out of the bedroom and into the living room.

There are more than a few tears on both sides, but seeing her, whole and healthy and happy leaves a contentment in his gut that he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

Jim cracks an eye open when he comes back to bed three hours later.

“How is she?”

Lenaal can only smile. “Beautiful.”

\--------

It isn’t that he’d thought Jim’s obsession with the Maru would be over after two failed attempts. It’s that he’d thought they would run out of time at school before he could come up with a way to wrangle a third.

Instead, Jim grabs him after their Policy in Context class--the only one they share this semester--with a jaunty “I’m taking the test again.”

For all that he fights Jim’s words fiercely to keep up appearances, he’s a little proud that Jim’s taking his determination to best everything that Starfleet stands for.

When he takes their test down the next morning, that pride grows tenfold.

\--------

They cut him down for it. Of course they do. They cut him down and they hold him back and when they call them all up to Vulcan, they refuse to let him go along. It pulls at something in Bones, and, on a whim, he reaches out to Rena.

_They've grounded him._

_Oh?_

_I... Rena, I have a bad feeling about this one._

_Why are you telling me?_

_Who holds higher protocol here? Earth? Or us?_

_You know the answer to that, Lenaal._

With a sigh and the knowledge that this is probably going to come back to bite him in the ass the way Jim's stunt this morning did, he turns around.

"Come with me."

\--------

As he stares out the window at the _Enterprise_ , the aviophobia slips away under the weight of the knowledge that that, right there, is Jim’s ship. That’s _Jim’s ship_. It warms him and leaves an ache in its wake, because now that they’re here, the reality of the end of this mission is even closer, even more real than it has ever been. But he has a job to do--not just as Lenaal Rorian Dorel, but as Leonard Horatio McCoy. He has a job, and he damned well is going to do it. For as long as he is able.

\--------

Nothing goes as planned.

He's on the bridge as the ship buckles and breaks around them, and for a second, as he sees the destruction laid out before him, he wants to scream at Rena that this _wasn’t part of the deal, it wasn't part of the **plan**_ before he startles and wonders if maybe… maybe it _was_.

He closes his eyes to the chaos around him, and _breathes_.

\---------

He forces his way off the bridge as Pike leads Jim off into his next bout of recklessness (Command track. _Honestly_.) and back down to Medbay to find it in total chaos. It goes against his orders from Cenophia, which are to stick by Jim and assure his safe return, but he's a Healer before he's a First, and there are people dying and in pain that he can save.

He grabs the first nurse he sees--Chapel; thank god--and tries to keep a level head. "The hell's going on here, Chapel?"

"Doctor Puri. He's..." She swallows and lowers her voice. "Leonard, he's _dead_."

The breath Bones sucks in is sudden and sharp as the world comes into terrifying focus. He's been around long enough to know what that means. He understands the chain of command.

He's...

 _Bones_ is in charge.

He tugs on the safety of that name even as everyone around him calls him Doctor McCoy; the name is foreign and twists something inside him every time someone says it, but he grits his teeth and barks out orders, giving lesser injuries (and what does it say about his day that moderate lacerations and mild burns qualify as lesser injuries?) to interns that stare up at him, wide-eyed and uncertain until he wraps firm hands around their shoulders and turns them in the direction of the distress calls, before turning back to do what he can to save who he can.

He loses track of time, loses track of calls, vaguely remembers barking out something over a comm to some higher-up that will probably get him tapped for insubordination, but frankly it’s the last thing he’s thinking about when he’s getting called over to a cadet that’s clinging to one of Bones’ interns with her jaw set in a grim sort of determination not to scream at the massive burn running up her right leg. Bones just smirks at the gold of her shirt, declaring her for the reckless fool Bones knows she must be. It's the only thing he can hang onto knowing that all he has to treat her is the burn regen, which might still lose her her leg. If they were on Cenophia--

But they're not.

She glares back, tightening her grip on the intern's wrist. “I saved her _life_.” The girl tilts his chin up a little higher, as though daring Bones to say something about what happened to her.

He turns his smirk on the intern instead, rolling his eyes. “Command track,” he mutters. "Honestly."

The intern’s lips twitch up into a smile as Bones goes for the regen, and he doesn’t have to try too hard to hear her watery laugh, or look too hard to see the way she tips forward, pressing her face into the other girl’s chest. He doesn’t have to wonder if they’ll be seeking each other out if they make it out of this.

 _When_ they make it out.

\--------

It isn't enough. They lose too many, and Bones can't save as many of them as he knows he should. And then.

Then the Vulcans come.

He has never been more grateful for the psychic blockers in the transmitter in his neck. The pain is too real and too close and he can't--

He just keeps doing his job.

Jim reaches for him as he stares down at the most recent in the flood of crew members that he couldn't save.

"How long have you been down here, Bones?"

He doesn't know.

"Come with me."

Jim eases him up to the bridge, and Bones lets himself take solace in the warmth of Jim's hand around his. Maybe, just for now, he can be a First instead of a Healer.

Just. Just for a little while.

\--------

(Except then Jim's gone and it's all he can do not to take Spock apart to get him back. He could. He has the training now, and the knowledge. But he can't. It will just get them both in trouble, and it won't get Jim back on the ship. So he steels himself and goes back down to Medbay to do what he can there.

It isn't enough.)

\--------

Jim's name is the only thing that gets him back up to the bridge in time to see Jim try to take their captain apart.

In time to see Jim take the captaincy what he's sure is years too early.

The "You've got to be kidding me," is just as much to Jim as to Rena. He lets it echo purposefully down the connection to Xir as well, wishing, briefly, for some sort of direction. When he gets none, he shuts the link off, not needing them to deal with what's in front of him. What's in front of him is Jim, and he's the only one that knows how to handle Jim.

So he does what he can to handle him.

\--------

And then. Then a _baby_ saves them--seventeen; good lord, the child hasn't even lived _one_ of Lenaal's 118 Cenophian years--with a plan that, miraculously, doesn't get the rest of the crew killed.

Somehow, Jim and his crew save them all.

Somehow, Bones gets to be a part of that.

Somehow, months later, they're flying out together, Jim's smile just as bright as the gold of his uniform.

And Bones knows that, soon enough, the time will come for him to shake off that name and become Lenaal once again.

He's pathetically grateful when they don't call him back right away.

\--------

Except.

Except then they go on not calling him back.

The weeks between what Starfleet has taken to calling the Battle of Vulcan turn into months of missions that edge between dangerous and routine, between terrifying and mundane. And through it all, there is no contact from Cenophia.

Some days, when the crew surrounds him with smiles and laughter, he wonders if they're ever going to call him back.

But.

But they have to.

He has responsibilities. A job. A home. A _daughter_. They can't take that away from him for a Human.

And yet.

And yet he can't make himself reach out to them to jumpstart the process.

Because that would mean admitting that this mission is over. That he's going to have to leave Jim in the (admittedly capable) hands of the rest of his crew. That he's going to have to leave his physical well being in Chapel and M'Benga's hands instead of his own. That Spock and Uhura will be the ones left to care for his mental well being.

And even though he's done it dozens of times before, he can't leave his Charge behind.

Not yet.

Not Jim.

Not yet.

\--------

(Besides, all he'd done was get Jim on the _Enterprise_ for the Battle of Vulcan. Surely. _Surely_ his responsibility was greater than that.

Surely.)

\--------

They're on a mission when the anniversary comes. Spock is gripping the arms of the captain's chair altogether too tightly as he asks through gritted teeth if Bones has any idea why the captain isn't answering his communicator.

Bones blinks, sighs, and nods. "I reckon I've got a pretty good idea."

As expected, Jim is on one of the observation decks, staring out into the inky blackness of space. It rattles Bones, same as it always has, that Jim feels safe sitting so close to the endless dangers of space.

But then, Jim is a child of the stars. Perhaps it's too be expected. As is his desire to be close to them today of all days.

Bones shoots off a quick message that the captain is fine, but not to be disturbed for the next six hours, knowing full well he'll have to forge a medical report over it.

He doesn't care. Jim deserves the time.

He settles on the floor next to Jim, bumping his shoulder companionably. "They look different from here, don't they?"

"We're at the edge of the quadrant, Jim. Of course they do."

Jim just nods. "Didn't think I'd care this much."

Bones bumps his shoulder up against Jim's companionably. "They're the same stars, Jim. All that’s changed is us."

Jim turns to him, a half-hearted smile on his lips. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are."

Bones waits Jim out for two hours, until he's listing a little, falling asleep beside him. Then he eases Jim to his feet, walking them both down to Jim's quarters and maneuvering him into bed. For a second, it's the first year of the Academy all over again. But Jim's eyes are a little softer around the edges, the wrinkles are a little more prominent, and the tension he'd carried then is all but gone, replaced by a confident stature that Bones knows will only grow stronger with time.

It scares him a little to see how much Jim has changed in what Bones knows, objectively, is very little time.

It makes him wonder how much longer he'll get to be a part of it.

In the end, though, he leaves Jim to his sleep, reporting back to Spock to assure him that the captain will be back to full strength by the next alpha shift.

\--------

A year of missions come and go too quickly. A year of missions leaves them more a crew than Bones ever would have expected them to become. A year of missions bring him closer and closer to Jim, even as Jim drifts closer and closer to Spock. A year of missions bring Jim to Medbay too often for Bones' comfort, but there's nothing to be done about it; that's just the way Jim moves through his life.

A year of missions come and go, and there's still no word from Cenophia.

And then the unthinkable happens.

\--------

Jim's wild-eyed and desperate as he leads them on a chase into some of the most dangerous territory in the galaxy. If this we still about his mission, Lenaal would have to stop him. Jim's place is as a captain, and he can't captain the _Enterprise_ if he gets them all killed.

But this hasn't been about his mission for months. It's about Jim. It's always been about Jim.

So Bones grits his teeth and follows orders.

\--------

Staring at his arm clamped into a torpedo isn't as terrifying as he thinks it should be. All it does is leave him wondering if this whole mission--the Academy, the Battle of Vulcan, the last year of missions, _all_ of it--were just a long, elaborate suicide mission. If he was just here to be a lesson in humility for Jim. He stares at his arm and counts down numbly and thinks only of Jim and Jenarel. This should scare him.

It doesn't.

It just makes him wonder.

\--------

(Jim's hand shakes on his shoulder when he makes it back to the ship. Bones covers it with his own, squeezing it gently, assuring Jim that he's still alive. It will have to be enough for now.

Jim's lost too many people already.)

\---------

And then, only hours after he'd thought this mission was going to end with his own death, Jim's the one on his table and Bones can't breathe.

He staggers over to his desk across the room, falling into the chair like his bones have all fled his body.

Ha. _Bones_.

He presses his face into his hands and, for the first time in too long, reaches out for the Council.

It's harder than it should be. He blinks once, suddenly understanding the radio silence of the last year and a half. In all the chaos of the Battle of Vulcan, he must have cut them off completely.

Had they tried to call him back already? Is he going to be charged with going rogue for not answering the call?

It doesn't matter. He's failed.

So he reaches through to Rena, ready to rage at her or accept his punishment, whichever comes first.

Instead, Xe sounds surprised to hear from him. _Lenaal?_

_He's dead, Rena._

He can almost hear her mind whirring to catch up, to try to understand. _Your Charge?_

_Yes._

He feels her smile down the line. _Patience, Healer._

Bones blinks, confused. But before he can ask, something moves in the desk beside him. Hope surges in his chest as he turns to stare at the formerly dead, now breathing tribble on his desk. For a second he can't breathe.

Then he's surging into action. "Get me a cryotube!"

\--------

Reaching back out to Rena after the chaos of Jim's death and subsequent revival is easier than it probably should be.

_Is that it? Am I done? Was that what I was here to do? To bring him back from death's door? I know I saved him as a Human, and that it is our job to act as Cenophians, to save out Charges as only we can. But surely... **surely** there is no more you can ask of me._

Rena doesn't answer.

\--------

As he stares up at the newly rechristened _Enterprise_ months after the destruction and the death that had almost lost him everything, Bones wonders if this mission is ever going to end.

When Jim slips a hand into his and Bones glances over at him, he wonders if he even cares.

\--------

Five more years of missions--of watching Jim court death at every opportunity and come back smiling at Bones through the blood on his teeth--is not Bones' idea of a fun time. But he grits his teeth and takes everything a day at a time.

Because even bloodied and broken, Jim's smile is the brightest thing he's ever seen, and the longer the Council lets him stay near it, the better.

Rena never answered his question, but he knows the answer. One day he'll have to save Jim's life as a Cenophian. One day, he'll have to put his considerable skills to work. One day he'll have to say goodbye.

But for now, he just hangs on.

\--------

When Jim goes missing on the anniversary of the Kelvin disaster just under a year into the five-year mission, Spock is just as angry as he’d been the first time it had happened.

A year later, he’s somewhere between irritated and curious.

By the third time it happens, he just raises an eyebrow at Bones, clearly expecting him to take care of it the way he has every year before.

Bones rolls his eyes, muttering something about presumptuous Vulcans, but knows as well as Spock that no one else will be able to find him. Or, perhaps more accurately, Jim doesn’t _want_ anyone else to find him. He never has. 

So Bones eases up to the observation decks, finding Jim in the same spot he’d found him the first time they’d been up in the stars at this time of year. The same spot he’s found him almost every year since. (The exception, of course, being those months of being grounded while their girl was being rebuilt. But they both try hard not to think of the aching loneliness of those months.) The quiet that greets him is a familiar sort of comfort in the black of space.

“Getting some perspective?”

Jim hums, leaning into Bones as Bones settles down beside him. “Something like that.”

For now, at least, they’re both safe. For now, shoulder pressing against Jim’s, Bones feels as content as he ever has. For now, everything is worth it.

\--------

For as long as he needs to--weeks stretching to months stretching to years--he saves Jim as a Human. For as long as he needs to, he uses the best of Earth's technology, and works to edge the planet's medical development along. For as long as he needs to, he treats Jim as his CMO and best friend. For as long as he needs to, they dance the same dance they've been dancing since the day they met.

Then.

Then the day he's been dreading finally comes.

It comes almost exactly the way he's feared it would.

Almost.

Except it's somehow ten times worse.

\--------

Jim’s clearly struggling to breathe by the time they wheel him into Medbay, his skin pale and clammy, but nothing on any of the scanners is showing up as a cause for this much distress. His heart rate’s elevated, as is his blood pressure, and his brain activity is off the charts for a Human, but beyond that, there’s nothing.

And then Bones sees it.

It’s the size of a pinprick on the left side of Jim’s neck, almost to the back, and black, as though it had been made with charcoal. Something stirs in the back of his mind--something like recognition--and he goes for a magnifier, adjusting the zoom until he can clearly see the mark on his captain’s skin. Then he slams the instrument down on his desk, strips off his gloves, and grabs his comm.

“Spock?”

“Doctor McCoy. Any progress on the Captain?”

“Possibly. The natives you encountered down there. Describe them to me.”

“The ones that attacked us?”

“The very same.”

“Quadrupeds, though they seemed to function bipedally just fine. Primarily red skin, black eyes, minimal clothing. Most had markings on their forward legs and faces, though I was unable to ascertain whether it was natural or manipulated.”

“The markings. Green and white?”

“Primarily, yes, though a few were--”

“Black.”

Spock goes quiet. “How did you know, Doctor?”

Bones swears under his breath. It’s just what he was afraid of. “Rumors, Commander. Rumors that I now imagine to be much more than just that. Thank you for confirming.”

“Doctor--”

“I will handle this, Mister Spock. Thank you for the information.”

Bones snaps his comm shut before Spock can ask anything else. Kasselians. The Kasselian soul death mark. How? _How_ had they gotten into Kasselian territory without him realizing it?

The sound of a throat clearing startles him into turning back to his staff, all of whom are staring at him, wide-eyed and confused. He narrows his eyes at all of them.

“Out. All of you. Take the rest of the shift off.”

Christine’s the one that shakes her head, nearing Bones tentatively. “Leonard--”

“Please, Christine. I can’t have the rest of you privy to what I’m about to do.”

M’Benga straightens. “Plausible deniability.”

“The very same.”

“Then you still have some of the serum?”

Bones blinks, confused for a second as to what he is referring. Then the image of Jim on his table in even worse shape than this almost five years previous flashes into his mind and he straightens a little more. “I can’t answer that.”

M’Benga nods, stepping forward to place his hands on Christine’s shoulders. She holds Bones’ gaze for a moment longer before sighing and giving into M’Benga’s encouragement, following the rest of their staff out the door.

He waits a full five minutes, struck by the relative quiet after the hustle and bustle of almost the entire medical staff working on or around him and Jim. Now there’s only the familiar constant hum of the Enterprise and the labored sound of Jim’s breathing.

When he’s sure no one else is nearby, he crosses to the computer banks and enters one of Jim’s override codes to both lock down access to and cut off and destroy the video feed from the Medbay. It probably won’t take Spock more than two minutes to notice, but hopefully he’ll give Bones the time he needs to get Jim cared for.

He glances back over his shoulder at Jim, eyes zeroing in on the slowly spreading mark on his neck. It’s already a good square centimeter, and, if memory serves, growing geometrically. It doesn’t leave Bones much time to put his plan into action. Especially in a place so unsuited to what needs to be done.

The psychic blockers in the communicator in his neck are easy enough to disable. They’d all learned the hard way in First training which alcohols left them almost as open to other creature’s brain waves as they are in their Cenophian bodies, and, when they’d been assigned the five-year mission, he’d been careful to hide the  
coriem he’d been gifted before leaving Cenophia in his office. He’d hoped against hope that he’d never need to break it out, though he’d considered it more than once.

Now, as the coriem burns its way down his throat, he’s grateful for his resistance.

It isn’t until he’s downed half a tumbler and is levering himself heavily back to his feet and over to Jim that he realizes the enormity of what he’s about to do. For an instant, he stops short. Maybe. Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe there’s another way.

And yet, even if there is another way, the fact that he jumped immediately to _this_ is telling. There are ways to drag a soul back, but that’s the act of a First Spirit, not a Healer. Rena sent him.

_Him._

And, if they’ve let him go this long, the time must be coming soon that he was meant to act as a Cenophian, and heal Jim in the truest way he can. This, surely, must be the time.

Besides, they’d chosen him for a reason, and Bonding could have been it.

The realization startles him into brief mental clarity, even as the mental clamor of the hundreds of crewmembers aboard the ship begin to penetrate the silence he’d forgotten to think of as strange. _He was the only Unbonded of the Firsts._ If Rena had known that this was what it would take to save Jim, Lenaal was the _only_ option.

The thought is sobering, and almost makes him rethink his plan of action again.

But one look at Jim is enough to remind him that this isn’t the first time he’s thought of Bonding with Jim. The man has become so much more than a Charge in the last 24 months, and leaving him like this when there was something he could have done--

He rolls a chair over to the head of Jim’s bed and settles into it, elbows on his knees and chin settled on the back of his interlaced fingers as he stares at his Charge.

It’s no choice at all.

He settles his hands on either side of Jim’s head, watching the way his eyes dart from side to side underneath his eyelids, chasing phantoms. For too long, he just watches.

But then the mark creeps up over Jim’s neck over his Adam’s Apple, and far too soon it’s marring the whole left side of his face in twisting black runes.

Lenaal blinks once, closes his eyes, and surrenders.

Jim’s mind buckles far too easily. It should scare Lenaal, but all it does is convince him that he was right to do this. That Jim would only accept him so easily if he was already open to it. His mind buckles and breaks and suddenly Lenaal can’t breathe.

It’s painful. There’s no two ways about it; the Bonding it _painful_. Bonding isn’t meant between anyone other than Cenophians, though even through his pain Lenaal isn’t so naive as to think he’s the first First that’s Bonded with a Charge to save them. More than that, Bonding is meant to be done with the aid of a First Spirit, and both parties are supposed to be fully prepared and open to it.

Instead, Lenaal is bonding with a _Human_ that’s halfway to having his soul stolen.

For an instant, as he wonders if this is too much, too soon, too _dangerous_. For an instant he wonders if he shouldn’t have backed off. For an instant, he wonders if he was supposed to let Jim die.

Then he feels it the instant Jim’s entire body goes loose and lax.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

It’s heat and weakness and exhaustion and imperfection but it’s _Jim_ and Lenaal is bowled over by the way he just wants to sink into what’s left of Jim’s soul. Let himself drown in it.

Let the disease drown them both.

Instead, he grits his teeth, wraps his soul around what little of Jim there still is, and _pulls_.

\--------

When he comes out of the trance, it's to see Jim's skin clear and unmarked again. Lenaal lets himself revel in that for as long as he can before the worry starts to sink in.

He may be sure he's not the first First to Bond with a charge, but he also remembers the rules and lectures from training. They're not supposed to. There are consequences. They're going to charge him the second he gets back to Cenophia.

It isn't until he's reopening channels to the rest of the ship that the worst occurs to him.

 _If_ they let him come back.

He closes his eyes, swallows, and tries not to let himself weep with the loss.

\--------

This time around, Bones doesn’t even wait for Spock to send him to find Jim on the anniversary. The Bond thrumming in his veins reminds him of what he already knows. It isn’t until he’s already on the observation deck, though, that he realizes the Bond has been trying to urge him elsewhere. So he turns on his heel and heads back down to find himself outside of Jim’s quarters.

It isn’t until after he’s already knocked that it occurs to him that he should probably worry about the ease with which he's already depending on the Bond.

But then Jim's telling him the door's open and he's easing into the room to find Jim lying on the floor in the dark.

"What are you doing, Jim?"

Jim just presses the first finger of his left to his lips and gestures to Bones to come join him with his right. "Just.. come over here."

The door slides shut behind Bones as he approaches Jim, and the second it does, there's a flash of light, before the darkness he'd been expecting is replaced by thousands of tiny pinpricks of light. Stars, as best as Bones can tell. They hover there for a long moment before they twist and shift, darting through the room to other places. It takes three cycles for Bones to realize there's a pattern to the motion, and another two before he notices the box on Jim's chest and realizes it's what's projecting the lights. Realizes the stars are all--

Oh.

Bones swallows, staring down at Jim. "This is... These are..."

"The universe. Every known star. From every point we've been on this date for the last nine years."

Bones swallows. "You had a life before that, Jim."

Jim just turns to look at him, eyes reflecting the stars surrounding them. His voice is quiet as he speaks. "None of that seems to matter anymore, Bones. You changed everything. I used to hate this day. Now, though. Now I can't help but look forward to it. It's the one day of the year I can be sure--"

Bones feels the emotion resonate down the bond, and sucks in a breath, terror flooding through him and bleaching out Jim's affection until all Bones can feel is his own fear.

He turns tail and runs.

\--------

The Bond changed nothing, because Bones has loved Jim for years.

The Bond changed everything, because now Jim thinks he loves Bones too.

Three weeks after Jim’s ill-timed confession, Bones finds himself in his quarters throwing back more bourbon than is wise.

Nothing's changed. But nothing's going to be the same again.

\--------

Scotty's voice crackles through the comm, and he sounds more than a little anxious in the wake of what Bones knows was a slightly panicked call from the away team of Jim, Spock, and Sulu. " _Doctor McCoy? You're, eh. You're gonna want ta be ready. Spock's bringin' tha Captain up now._ "

It's been three months since the Bond. Three months of Jim getting more and more reckless on away missions. Three months of healing worse and worse wounds. Three months of alternately fending off drunken advances and welcoming attempts to return to normal (whatever normal was between them before). Three months. Bones should really be used to things like this by now, and, with the hypo he automatically tucks into his back pocket, he probably is. But just like every time this happens, it jars him to see Jim limping in, bloodied and held up by Sulu and Spock, Sulu listing slightly into Jim, making it clear that Spock is supporting most of their combined weight, though Sulu’s clearly trying to help. Both Spock and Sulu are tight lipped and angry, but apparently holding out on saying anything, like they know Bones will do better than either of them can.

Jim, of course, forgets this fact the way he does every time he’s running on adrenaline and endorphins. “Bones, my good man!”

“Jim.” He forces his voice hard and stern, gently taking him from Spock and Sulu’s care and easing him across the room onto the nearest biobed. “The hell did you do this time?”

“Eh.” Jim shrugs, pulling Bones closer to him by his uniform, clearly drunk on adrenaline.

Or possibly something more, given the scent on his breath.

Bones frowns, glancing behind him at Spock and Sulu. “Mister Spock? Mister Sulu? Care to tell me what happened down there?”

Spock straightens. “Not entirely sure, Doctor. The natives seemed friendly enough, but as soon as the captain was incapacitated they started shooting. The drink seems not to have affected me, and Mister Sulu did not drink as much as the captain, but--”

“But Jim was trying to make nice.” Bones grimaces, turning back to Jim as his hands slide underneath Bones’ shirt. “No, Jim,” he says firmly, pushing his hands down and away.

Jim whines, grabbing at his shirt again, and Bones sighs, but goes, reaching automatically for the hypo in his pocket.

It’s familiar, by now, for Jim to get handsy when he’s even mildly intoxicated, but it’s been getting worse every time it happens for months now. It’s to the point that Bones finds himself actually leaning into Jim’s gentle encouragement for a kiss. He’s a breath away before he gently presses the hypo with the sedative against Jim’s neck, knocking him out easily.

He knows it's just the Bond interfering with Jim's mind. Knows better than to think anything of it. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to lean into the touches every single time it happens.

He's so _lonely_.

He still has to wait for a long moment, supporting Jim’s unconscious weight before he lowers Jim back down onto the bed. Shaking himself, he turns back to the other two officers in the room.

“Now then, let’s take a look at what they dosed you two with, Mister Sulu.”

\--------

Slowly, Jim learns to reign himself in.

Slowly, Bones learns not to expect more from him.

Slowly, they get as close to normal as they ever were.

Then, everything goes to hell again.

\--------

It's the middle of gamma shift when Bones is woken by an insistent humming in the base of his skull.

He opens his eyes and, for a moment, believes he can see the Council staring at him.

Rena's voice comes to him first. _It's time to come home, Lenaal._

He closes his eyes and breathes.

Slowly, desperately, he raises his hands to press the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees stars.

_Now, High Councillor?_

_Now, Healer._

He grits his teeth. _Why now? What's changed?_

_The Narada derailed the course of many in the universe, but the only one that could put them all back into alignment was Jim Kirk. His captaincy on the Enterprise and all the good he has done and will do were the things that came into the greatest jeopardy due to the interference of the Narada._

_He's been a captain for, god, six years. Why now?_

For a while they don't answer. Then Rena's voice speaks over her Secondary Councillors'. _If you had not been there, Healer Lenaal, he would have died a dozen times over. All our work would have been in vain. Helping him become captain was only half the battle. Getting him to stay a captain was the rest._

_He'll stay a captain. He always would have stayed a captain, he would have made his way here no matter what._

_Perhaps. But this was the way to ensure that that happened._

Lenaal shakes his head, pressing his hands over his ears, as though that will block out the voices. _You know what I did to save him, High Councillor._

_I do._

_It's why you sent me. I was the only Unbonded of the Firsts, the only one that could have done this for him, the only one that could have given this to him. And now you're going to take it away from me?_

_Healer Lenaal. Your responsibility to Jim Kirk is only as his guide. Nothing more._

_Nothing more?_ The laugh that bubbles past his lips is almost hysterical. _I am so much more than his guide at this point. I am his friend, his Chief Medical Officer, his..._ Bonded _. I am his in every way possible. I am his, High Councillor, and you ask me to leave him behind? To be left behind? You ask me to walk away from him?_

_Yes._

Lenaal has no response. _Why now?_

 _Your task is complete, Lenaal,_ one of the Secondary Councillors says. _That is all that you need to know or understand._

_No, you tell me why you're bringing me back._

_Because it is time. This is what our visions have shown us. You were originally to be brought back after the case with the Narada, but as you stayed past that point, more and more was altered, more was shifted, more was changed, and this is what you needed. This is what he needed. And now that your task has been fulfilled, you are to return here and return to duty. You have a responsibility to your people, Lenaal, and to the universe. Staying with Jim Kirk will not fulfill that responsibility._

_And what of my Bond? What am I supposed to do when he dies in six years and I lose my Bondmate? I won't survive it. Why not let me do the good that I can do here, for now, in this body?_

_Because you can do enough good in six years in your true body, Lenaal. And with time, you will learn to live without him. Return to us._

Lenaal stares blankly at the wall in front of him. Thinks of how easy it would be to just end it. To walk away, to never have to fight with the Council or with Jim again. But he thinks of the emptiness that would leave him with. The loss, and the desperation. The quiet. And he knows he won't do it.

But he can't go back to Cenophia. Not with his partner here. Not without his Bondmate. Their relationship may be in shambles right now, twisted and only slowly working its way back to normalcy, but it's Jim, and the thought of leaving him behind aches. And Jim is too much a traveler, too much a free spirit, too much a man of his own design to walk away from his ship. From his crew. From his friends. From his family. Lenaal could never ask that of him. So he won't.

But Lenaal. He can walk away. They walked away from him. They left him here for long enough that this body feels familiar, feels like home. The idea of walking on four legs again is not so much terrifying as simply alien. That his own body would feel so strange is what settles it for him.

Maybe all he needed was a reason.

So he turns his thoughts inward again. _No._

_No?_

_No. I will not return to Cenophia. I will not return to my post. You left me here; you gave me this responsibility, and I will see it through until its end. You say that Jim Kirk can change the path of universe, then I will change it with him. I will shape this universe from Jim Kirk's side. I will not return to you._

_Healer--_

_No, High Councillor. I will not return._ With that, he gets to his feet and strides across the room to his med kit, pulling out his laser scalpel and setting the depth to 13.5 mm. He makes an incision in the back of his neck, where he knows the communicator chip is and, drawing on what little psychic energy he has, draws the chip out through the incision.

The voices in his head have gone quiet, and they seem to understand what he's doing. Rena's voice alone cuts through the silence. _Healer Lenaal. Do not. Make. This. Mistake._

 _It's not a mistake, High Councillor. Our job is to shape the universe. So I will shape it._ Then he yanks the chip from his neck and the voices go quiet. He crushes it under his heel for good measure.

Task completed, he goes to the bridge to find Jim, reaching out for him, kneeling beside him, and staring out into the black from his side.

"Bones?"

Leonard shakes his head. "It's nothing, Captain."

"Are you sure?"

Leonard looks up at him, taking in everything he is. And he settles completely back into this skin, and speaks not as Leonard, but as Bones. "I have never been more sure of anything, Captain."

It seems that all Jim can do is smile back.

\--------

They're five months out from the end of their five year mission when he overhears the conversation.

Uhura's voice is soft and uncertain. "The transmission came through last night on a private comm line to me, but it's not in any language I've ever heard. The computer can't seem to turn it into text, either."

"No recognizable base language?" Spock's tone has that carefully cultivated air of indifference that masks true curiosity.

"None, Sir. At least, not any that I could decipher on my first pass."

"Very well, Lieutenant. I will inform the captain. Please continue to analyze the transmission, and let one of us know when you find something."

Bones waits just long enough not to be suspected before he walks in to hand the PADD with his requisition forms on it to Spock to sign off on.

\--------

For the next few weeks, Uhura is almost never without her PADD, earbuds in whenever she's not on active duty, phonetic text in Standard replacing them when she is. When he asks, she says she's running analyses on the text, looking for anything recognizable. Some base language. Tracing it back from the oldest languages she has, through the newer ones, looking for anything recognizable, anything that she can reach.

So when she leaves it out on the table in the conference room, Bones' curiosity gets the better of him. He slides the earbuds into his ears and hits play.

His heart shatters.

He knows this. Knows this language, knows this cadence, knows the tones. Something in him aches as he recognizes his mother tongue. But then the words start to filter through the rush of familiarity, and he has to start it over to make sure his mind isn't playing tricks on him. Slowly, he understands. It is a message for him, and for him alone, sent through Uhura, because he'd never have listened if they'd sent it to him directly. But it can't mean what he fears it does.

Joreno? Dead? Jenarel alone, an orphan? With a deserter father and a dead mother? A rether that will have no interest in raising her for the short time that he's still alive? _If_ he's still alive? Who is he to leave his child like that? Who is he to leave his daughter alone? Alone in the world and desperate for any care?

He doesn't know how long he stands there after the message peters out, doesn't know how long it takes before his famously steady hands begin to shake. All he knows is that that's where Jim finds him--eyes glazed over, distant, frightened, uncertain--and reaches out for him. 

"Bones," Jim says, hands settling on the sides of his face. "Bones, what is it? What's wrong; what's happened?" Bones stares at him, the words registering, their meaning not reaching his mind. "Bones."

Jenarel. Jenarel. Jenarel.

He swallows. "I'm sorry, Jim."

Jim frowns. "Sorry?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm sorry."

Jim looks somewhere between taken aback and frightened. "Sorry-- Bones, what's going on?"

"I'm sorry. I can't... I can't stay."

"What?"

"I can't stay."

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

"It's... I can't stay."

"Can't stay in this room? Can't stay in your quarters? Can't stay in the Medbay? Can't stay where?"

"On the Enterprise."

Jim blinks. "What?"

"I can't stay on the Enterprise. Joanna... Jocelyn... I..."

"What about Joanna, Bones? What's going on?"

He swallows. "Jocelyn's dead."

Jim's eyes go wide. "Dead? How?"

"I don't know."

"But then, Joanna--"

"She's living with Jocelyn's sister, but I can't leave her with them forever, Jim. She's my daughter."

"Of course, of course. We can make room for her--"

"You want me to bring my daughter up into the black? Up into the death, the disease, the darkness? I can't do that to my baby girl."

The words come automatically, like they've been planted there. It shouldn't be this easy to lie this way, but he knows that it's the only way that Jim will accept this.

He lets the aviophobia close up over him, hides behind it, whispers his refusal to let his daughter be hurt this way. "I won't bring her up here, Jim. Her place is on Earth until she's grown enough to make her own decision. And until then, I will stay with her."

"She must be, what, fifteen, Bones? Three years, and then she can make her own decisions. She can go to college, go to Starfleet. She can join us as her own officer."

"And in three years, maybe she will." The lie burns in his throat, but he lets Jim have his delusion. "In three years she may. But until then, Jim..." He shakes his head. "She's my baby girl."

Jim swallows, nods, and pulls him close. "Okay, Bones. Okay."

\--------

He moves through the ship like a ghost for the remaining month of the tour, fully aware that Jim moved up their return date for him. In any other situation he would have fought Jim tooth and nail, because the ‘Fleet is more important than any individual, but for Jenarel, he won't look too closely at it.

He'll just take when Jim gives him and waits for what waits for him back home.

Back on Cenophia.

\--------

(It hasn't felt like home in longer than he wants to think about.)

\--------

Jim tries to offer to come back to Georgia with him.

Bones just shakes his head. "You have responsibilities, Jim. You can't ignore them for me. You know that."

Jim just stares at him, face pinched and eyes worried. "If you say so, Bones."

Bones gives him a tight smile. "I do."

\--------

He doesn't say goodbye. A part of him knows he'll regret that, but the rest knows his eyes will give everything away if he actually says a final goodbye. So he skips out on goodbyes and instead he packs up all his things, gets on the shuttle to Georgia, and downs the entire bottle of coriem, letting the sounds of the three dozen other passengers lull him into a false sort of stillness.

When he reaches the rendezvous point, Joreno is waiting for him, tall and regal and _alive_ and, above all, a horrible confirmation of everything he knows is about to happen.

He closes his eyes. "Is Jenarel alright?"

"She's fine, Lenaal."

He nods, once. Severe. "What are they charging me with?"

"Lenaal--"

"Please, Joreno. Just... just be honest with me."

"They hadn't decided when we left."

"We?"

The jab to his neck is swift, severe, and unsurprising. Joreno's eyes, sad and worried are the last thing he sees before he loses consciousness.

_Oh. So that's what it feels like._

\--------

He comes around to Joreno seated at his bedside, flipping idly through a book that he knows he should be able to place, but can't quite manage. For a while, he just watches her, waiting for her to notice.

In the end, she looks up at him, eyes unreadable.

"You didn't come back."

Lenaal sighs, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. "I didn't."

"Did you remember what you were leaving behind?"

He squeezes his eyes shut. "Every day."

"Then why?"

He swallows. "He was... he was _everything_ , Jo."

"Who?"

"Jim."

"Jim?"

"My Charge."

"Lenaal--"

"I know what you're going to say. I told myself the same things every day. But... but we fit, Joreno, in a way I've never fit with anyone else in my life."

She stares down at him, eyes sad.

He closes his eyes, unable or unwilling to meet her gaze, and uncaring about which it is. "I'm never going to see him again, am I?"

Her fingers in his hair are all the confirmation he needs.

\--------

He never sees the First Warrior they sent down with Joreno. The two of them keep him confined to his quarters on the ship, which he hardly minds, preferring the silence and solitude to Joreno's occasionally forced company. It's not that he doesn't care for her any more. It's just that years--months--of fighting with and hating her doppelgänger make it difficult to accept the woman that he remembers from Before.

Because his whole life seems split up that way, into a Before and an After, even though the After is minuscule compared to the Before. He knows from listening to Bondmates talk that it's supposed to feel that way when you Bond, but he's pretty sure it's supposed to change when the Bond is forged, not months before when all you have is a friendship that takes apart everything that you know about your world.

But that's the way it was with Jim, almost from the beginning.

So he closes his eyes when he hears her coming and tries to dream. At least then he can see Jim.

\--------

Jenarel's waiting when they step off the ship, and for just a second, he regrets everything. The hiding. The avoidance. The running. Jim.

But then the Bond twists in his gut and he wonders what Jim's just discovered. If it would be enough to break the Bond.

He knows it never will be. And he knows he can never regret the last remnant of a connection he has to Jim, no matter the consequences it will bring him.

Not even for Jenarel.

\--------

He doesn’t feel anything when they peel the Human skin from his body.

Everything he loved about that body has already been taken from him.

The physical pain of the removal is nothing compared to that.

\--------

They suspend his First license pending further investigation.

He doesn’t care.

What would he even be able to do for them like this?

\--------

He knows he’s scaring Jenarel. Notices her spending more and more time away from home. Notices it in the empty spaces in the house, and in the skittish way she moves around him. It’s strange, knowing that she’s upset enough that she can’t be near him.

It’s not strange enough to make him change.

\--------

One month (or is it three?) after they suspend his license, they give it back, and within days (or is it weeks?) of that they give him his first mission.

Strapping on another skin is the first time he’s felt like he could breathe since they brought him back.

\--------

It’s a routine job. Gentle guidance, careful realignment of the Charge’s path. Easy. Centering. For a few days, at least, it makes the ache in his chest dissipate, and even when it comes back, it doesn’t feel as bad.

Maybe. Maybe he just needs to get back to work.

Maybe that’s all he needs.

\--------

When he gets back from the first job, he goes to the hospital as soon as he gets the chance. There, he finds out that they’d put him on grief leave after he’d gotten back, same as they would have if his Bondmate had died. He stares at Wara for too long when xe tells him that, until he thinks xe’s going to put him back on the list after just taking him off.

He shakes himself, and straightens, feeling more at home in his skin somehow. “Thank you.” He swallows, wondering if this is the right decision. But he thinks of more long days at home without Jenarel, about the way she can’t seem to look at him any more. Thinks of the way taking a job again had made him feel better, even just for a little while. Considers being without that sort of contentment for any longer than he has to be.

Closes his eyes. Stands a little taller. Opens his eyes again to look down at where Wara's smiling, a little sadly, up at him.

“When can I start again?”

\--------

Slowly, the routine starts to settle him. After a patient looks at him funny, he relearns how to use all of his hands. After an intern looks at him funny, he relearns how to use all of his technology. After a colleague looks at him funny, he relearns how to ease pain and passing instead of holding his powers back. 

Hardest of all, after a child watching their rether waste away looks at him sadly, he relearns how to let the dying go instead of cling to them so fiercely, the way the Humans do.

Slowly, he relearns how to be a Cenophian.

After all, less than a year of retraining isn’t enough to erase 118 years of history.

Is it?

\--------

(Once, he wonders whether he’d have made the same decisions he did on the _Enterprise_ in this skin as he had in his Human skin.

What terrifies him is the fact that he thinks he would have.

For Jim… he would have.)

\--------

(He doesn’t think about it again after that.)

\--------

The first time Jenarel reaches out for him, wrapping her arms around him and whispering a frightened “I love you, Daddy,” he knows he’ll find a way to be happy here.

For Jenarel.

Everything is for Jenarel

\--------

(Now, at least. It has to be.)

\--------

For eight more months (or is it three years? Is he ever going to get used to how time moves in Cenophia again?), he muddles through, taking short missions, three days or less, and taking his time in between, working at the hospital until he feels like maybe he can make this life work again.

Maybe he can learn to welcome this way of life again.

Maybe he can learn to love his daughter enough to close the gaping hole in his chest.

Maybe he can learn to forget Jim.

Maybe…

But of course, Jim would never let Lenaal forget him.

Never.

\--------

_Get to the Council Hall._

The text is cryptic, and leaves Lenaal interested enough to actually crawl out of bed. By the time he makes it there, the hall is filled almost to bursting, with a wide space in the middle. He’s tall enough that he only has to rear up a touch to see over the gathered heads to the line of ten or so of his brethren and the two tiny figures standing before them in the middle of the gathering. It takes him a second, longer than it should have, but when he settles on the two forms, he knows exactly what’s going on and exactly why Jen’s called him. As soon as he does, he melts into the back of the room. If High Councillor Rena hadn’t called him here, it was for a reason, and Jen is risking more than he wants her to by calling him. He’s too grateful to her to walk away, but still too wary of the Council to press his luck.

He’s less surprised than he should be that Jim’s brought Uhura down with him. Of all the crew, she’s easily the most diplomatic, and most likely to make whatever it is that Jim’s trying to negotiate here a success. Jim’s walking slowly up and down the lineup, which, now that Lenaal’s looking a little closer, he sees includes Jen. On his third pass, Jim lingers a little longer in front of her, staring up into her face, walking all the way around her, like he’s trying to figure something out. Eventually, though, he walks away from the lineup, shaking his head as he walks toward Uhura and High Councillor Rena. The set of his shoulders makes it clear he’s holding back angrier words than Lenaal’s heard from him in a long time, maybe ever.

It’s as he’s approaching Uhura that Jim’s eyes scan the room and, for a brief second, catch on Lenaal. They slide right past him at first, before stopping, and then darting back to him. Jim freezes where he stands, eyes raking over Lenaal, who tries not to react. Then Jim’s changing course, marching across the room, and pushing his way through Lenaal’s brethren toward him. He stops barely a dozen centimeters away from him, hands reaching instinctively up toward Lenaal’s face. Caught off guard, Lenaal tries to react the way he imagines anyone would to a strange little alien walking up to them, especially if Jim’s supposed to be doing what Lenaal thinks he’s supposed to be doing.

He raises an eyebrow.

In an instant, Jim’s face splits in relief, hands dropping to his sides, obviously realizing he can’t reach Lenaal’s face from his height. Then he says the one thing that Lenaal thought he would never hear again.

“ _Bones_.”

The tension in the completely silent hall ratchets up another ten degrees at Jim’s unexpected announcement. Lenaal just looks at him, mind racing as he tries to determine the best course of action, even as he keeps his face gently neutral. “I’m sorry?”

Jim’s body relaxes even further, like Lenaal has just confirmed something for him. “Bones. I-- _Bones_ ”

He hears the telltale clip of someone approaching them, and in a second, Uhura is standing at Jim’s side, looking Lenaal up and down. Then she turns to Jim. “Captain?”

“It’s him. I don’t know how I know, but it’s him.”

“He’s not in the lineup.”

“They just said I had to find him; they never said he was in the lineup; they wanted me to think he was over there, but they never _said_ \-- We just assumed; it was a test; Bones, _say something_.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Dammit, Bones, don’t play with me.”

Lenaal looks up, meeting High Councillor Rena’s eyes. Xir face is angry, like Xe hadn’t expected this to happen. “Captain Kirk,” Xe says, voice a little stern, “is there a problem?”

Jim doesn’t even turn to face her, attention completely focused on Lenaal. Uhura, on the other hand, turns around, like she wants to say something to make nice, but High Councillor Rena just shakes her head.

“Captain.”

Jim swallows, then turns to face Xir slowly. “Yes, High Councillor?”

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Why don’t you tell me? You told me to find my CMO. And I’ve found him.”

Then Jim turns back to Lenaal, staring up at him with something like certainty in his eyes.

Lenaal tries not to swallow, tries not to clench his fists, tries not to react in any way, tries to stay loose and steady and constant and everything his training has ever taught him to be in the face of something he never expected to happen. He’s biting his tongue hard enough that he’s surprised it isn’t bleeding. Anything to keep the hope and the prayers and the desperation from loosening his tongue.

_Jim. Jim. JimJimJimJim--_

The one thing he never thought he’d have again, and here it is right in front of him, and all he can do is stand and watch, because this is out of his hands. He’s just a Healer.

He’s just a Healer. He’s not a politician or a Seer or a Councillor or any of that. He’s just a Healer, and his job is to do what he is told. To heal the bodies that come under his hands, heal the minds that open themselves to him, but only the ones that open themselves to him. And even though Jim is standing before him, body loose and relaxed and welcoming, he is not open. He can’t heal Jim, because Jim isn’t his anymore. Not his Captain, or his friend, or whatever it is that they would have become if the High Council hadn’t called him back. Jim is just the memory of a successful mission. The memory of the correction of the universe that they set in motion. The memory of months (years) spent on campus together, learning the set of his shoulders and the wicked speed of his tongue. The memory of the Narada and the lives he’d saved that day. The memory of Khan and Jim’s dead body on his table and the cost of bringing him back. The memory of months (years) in space and Jim risking his life like the fool he is. The memory of a bond deeper and stronger than anything else in the universe. The memory--

The memory of the failure and the death the disconnect and the refusal to respond to calls and everything that Lenaal did wrong on that mission, everything that should have kept him and Jim safe and protected that he didn’t do. Jim is just a painful reminder of everything that went wrong in those twenty-seven months (ten years).

A memory. Just a memory.

That’s all he should be.

But that’s not all he is.

So Lenaal just stares down at him, gut twisting, fingers twitching in the desire to turn into a fist and maybe even punch Jim across the face; something to make him understand that he shouldn’t have come here; he shouldn’t have changed things; he shouldn’t have upset the balance, and how the hell did Jim even find his way here; how is this happening; why is this happening; what did Lenaal do to deserve this?

What did he do to deserve this?

To see Jim, standing before him, tall and strong and whole, face more lined than it had been ten months ago, the last time that Lenaal had seen him.

Because Jim has aged, that much is obvious. More than he should have in the time that they’ve been apart, but he has aged. And it breaks something inside Lenaal to be reminded so strongly of Jim’s mortality. Of the shortness of his life. Of the fact that he may live to see another five of Lenaal’s own years before he is dead and gone, and Lenaal bound himself to this child, this boy, this... this _man_. This beautiful, beautiful man that would give up everything to keep Lenaal safe. And how did Lenaal repay him? He left him behind for what he knew to be a trick and a trap. For his daughter.

And that settles him. Strengthens his resolve. Because even if he loses Jim (when he loses Jim), he will always have Jen. He looks across the hall, meets her eyes. She blinks once, and then her eyes go wide, as though she’s just understood something. Lenaal quirks a corner of his mouth up, and then looks back down at Jim, who’s staring up at him, eyes wide and bright in defiance.

“Say something to me, Bones. Say. Something.”

Rena's voice cuts through anything he might have said. "Healer Dorel is indeed one of my Firsts. A skilled Healer. And you would be fortunate to have him. But he is not your CMO."

Jim's face twists as he turns around to face Rena fully this time. "Don't lie to me. I know my crew. I know my officers. I know them better than I know myself, and Bones is the one I knew best. And this is him." He turns from where he's been arguing with Rena to face Lenaal again. "Bones, please. I don't know what game you're playing, I don't know what game _they're_ playing, but I don't care. I just... I need to know. I need to know why... Why did you leave?"

Lenaal's teeth do break skin, then, blood gushing into his mouth. He swallows it, but doesn't speak.

"You promised me, Bones. You promised me that you would stay with me. That I would never lose you. So what happened? What changed? Why did you walk away?"

Lenaal blinks once, but doesn't say anything.

Jim's face goes red. "Don't pretend it didn't mean anything. Don't pretend you didn't spend ten years by my side, helping me, teaching me, trusting me, being everything I could ever need, everything I could ever expect, everything I could ever hope for. Don't pretend it didn't mean anything to you."

Lenaal stares down at Jim's face, accepting this punishment. Accepting Jim’s anger and rage and hurt as his due for not fighting harder. He accepts it, right up until Jim lunges forward, hands fisting around the elbows of his lower arms.

"Dammit, Bones, say something."

The shift in the room is immediate. Lenaal catches sight of Rena signaling Nerali, and suddenly she and six of her Warriors have descended on Jim and Uhura, wrenching Jim away from Lenaal and wrestling him away toward the center of the room and down onto his knees.

Jim doesn't even seem to notice, his eyes still fixed on Lenaal. "Why? Why did you walk away? Why did you leave? _What did I do wrong?_ "

That's what does it.

Lenaal closes his eyes, fighting the words down, fighting the need to reassure Jim, but he knows it won't work. "You didn't do anything wrong, Jim."

"Then why did you _leave_?"

Lenaal feels a hand on his elbow, and he follows the direction automatically, turning away from the scene and stepping toward the door.

" _Don't you walk away from me, Bones._ "

Lenaal can hear the way the words scrape against Jim's throat, but he knows that if he stays any longer, he'll reveal more than he's supposed to, more than even Rena's lenience in the wake of this assignment will allow. He lets Wara lead him out of the room, out of the building, and back home.

_Don't you walk away from me._

\--------

Lenaal isn't sure how much time passes before Jenarel comes home. She doesn't knock, but walks directly into the room, settling on the ground beside where he lies on the bed, back to her.

"I'm sorry."

Lenaal frowns, shifting around to look at her. "What?"

"I'm sorry I commed you."

That gets a reaction out of him. "Why are you sorry?"

"High Councillor Rena didn't want you there for a reason. They were never going to let you go back with him. I thought maybe if you saw him--if they saw you..." She shakes her head. "I should have known; I should have respected that; I shouldn't have called you; Daddy, I'm so sorry."

Lenaal reaches out automatically, pulling her close to him. "Oh, Malaysha."

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I wasn't thinking. I just... I saw him and I knew and all I could think of was you and how much you miss him and... I'm sorry."

Lenaal just holds her, eyes clenched shut against her pain as it matches his own. "I know Malaysha. I know you're sorry. You did what you thought was best. You did just fine."

"No I didn't. I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

Lenaal soothes her, smoothing her hair back and holding her close. As her apologies peter out into wordless, choked-off cries, he draws back to look at her. "Oh, Baby. I'm so grateful to you."

"What?"

"I'm so glad you told me to come."

"But--"

"I needed to see him. I needed to know that he was still alive. I needed that."

"They're never gonna _let_ you see him again."

"We don't know what they're going to do, Baby. We don't know what they're going to do to him. We don't know what they're going to do to me. All we know is that he found his way here, and that's something that's never been done before."

Jenarel swallows, looking away. "I shouldn't've commed you."

Lenaal turns her to face him, looking into her eyes, purple, and so, so fierce. "I'm glad you did." He pulls her close again, running his fingers through her hair, trying to calm her. "I'm glad you did."

He holds her until she falls asleep in his arms, and he lets himself pretend, just for now, that she's his little girl again.

\--------

They make him wait until well into the evening before they let him see Jim. When he does, Jim's lying back on his cot, one wrist cuffed to the headboard, and both propped behind his head. He doesn't move at the sound of the door opening, just goes on staring at the ceiling. But when Lenaal moves into his peripheral vision to set the food on the table by the bed, he's suddenly completely alert, scrambling up into a seated position, eyes raking over Lenaal's body hungrily.

"Bones." Lenaal purses his lips, and settles on the floor facing Jim. He opens his mouth to say something--he's not quite sure what--but Jim cuts him off. "Don't. Not yet. Just. Just let me look."

Lenaal relaxes a little. He's used to this. He looks with his hands, touching and poking and prodding to assure himself that his patients are okay, but Jim trusts his eyes over anything else. So they sit in silence, Jim still needing to tip his head back slightly to run his gaze over Lenaal's face. But then his eyes drift down, over neck and shoulders. Chest. Hips. To linger on his lower body.

Lenaal tries not to flush, knowing that Jim is just trying to acquaint himself with this body rather than judging it. And then Jim's eyes drift back up to his face and stay fixed there for a long time.

Eventually Jim looks away, turning to the food that Lenaal has brought him. He reaches for the lorela, twisting it, as though trying to understand how it works, and then reaches for the platter. He takes a few bites before he settles the platter and the lorela on his lap.

"It is you, isn't it? I'm not wrong."

Lenaal sighs. "No, Jim. You're not wrong."

Jim closes his eyes and shivers a little. "God. Somehow it's..." Then he opens his eyes and fixes his gaze on Lenaal. "I don't understand, Bones. I don't understand why you never said anything. I don't understand this body, I don't understand... I don't understand anything."

Lenaal quirks a tiny smile. "Yeah. We figured you'd have questions."

"Are you allowed to answer them?"

"Some. Probably not the ones you really want answers to. But some."

Jim nods, turning back to his food, clearly sorting through his many questions in an attempt to figure out which ones Lenaal will be most likely to answer.

He starts simple. "How long did you have that body?"

"Got it a little over one Earth year before I met you."

"A year?"

Lenaal nods.

"Why were you in a human body in the first place?"

"Our job is to keep order and balance in the universe. When the Narada crossed through the boundaries into our universe, it was our job to set it right. It took about a year and a half to determine the best course of action, and that involved sending someone to correct the paths of those that had been altered."

"You sent one person? To fix everything?"

"Our Seers saw that only one life needed to be changed to set the universe back on course."

"One life?"

"Yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes, Jim."

"Me. I was the only thing that needed to be changed to fix the course of the entire universe."

Lenaal shrugs, a tiny grin making its way onto his face. "You always said you were special."

Jim looks up from his food finally, staring up at Lenaal, disbelief in his eyes. "Me. You got put in that body for me."

Lenaal looks away, feeling his cheeks stain blue.

Jim squints at him. "Bones? Is something wrong?"

Bones just shakes his head. "Nothing, Kiddo."

Jim stares at Bones a little longer, then down at his food again. "Not that much of a kiddo anymore, Bones."

Lenaal sobers immediately. "No. I don't suppose you are."

"Four years, Bones. _Four years_ you've been gone. Four years I've had to search the entire universe to try and find you. Four years."

Lenaal aches to reach out for Jim, but he doesn't dare cross that line until he's invited. "I know, Jim."

"I don't--" He stops, swallows, and seems to think better of whatever he was going to say. "So, your job was to find me and fix me."

"Not fix you. You didn't need to be fixed."

"I didn't-- right, okay, sure, whatever."

"You didn't." Of this, Lenaal is completely certain. "You would've made it to where you were supposed to be no matter what. I just made it a little easier."

"Is that the only reason? The only reason you--" Jim draws a shaky breath, like he doesn't actually want to ask this question.

The answer burns in Lenaal's throat, the _no no no never I would have found you anyway I would have followed you anyway I would have loved you anyway I would have I would have I would have--_ But this is one thing they had cautioned him against answering. "I can't answer that."

Jim's laugh is harsh and bitter. "Of course you can't. Of course the one thing out of all of this that actually matters and you can't..." He puts his dish back on the table, lies down again, and turns his back to Lenaal. "I'm not hungry anymore."

Lenaal takes that as the dismissal it is. "Would you like me to see if I can get Uhura moved in here with you?"

"Don't do me any favors, Dorel."

Lenaal swallows, nods, and walks out.

\--------

They call him before the Council the next day.

"How did he find us, Lenaal?"

"Was I supposed to ask him?"

"You know him."

"And I know his crew. But I don't know how he got here. Was I supposed to ask him?"

Rena eyes Xir council members, silently asking what they all think. Then she gestures at Lenaal. "Go."

He shakes his head. "He's not going to tell me." When the High Councillor raises an eyebrow, he elaborates. "He came here thinking he was going to get me back. You let him think that. But he's been hurt too many times by me and people like me. He's not going to tell me."

"The other one, then."

"Uhura?" He considers it only briefly before acquiescing. "She might."

Rena nods. "Then go find out."

\--------

"Lieutenant."

"It's Lieutenant Commander now." The response is automatic, as though she's had to make the correction too many times. Then, after a moment, Uhura looks up, confusion on her face. She's bound, as Jim was, to her bed, but she seems to be taking it with much less attitude than Jim had been. "I mean... Yes? Can I help you?"

Lenaal sighs. "It's Leonard."

She tilts her head. "Huh. I never would have guessed."

The question is on the tip of his tongue and, on a whim, he lets it fall past his lips. "How did Jim know?"

Her eyes go a little sad. "You know the answer to that, Leonard."

Lenaal nods. He does know, he just doesn't want to think about it. So he pushes the question aside and settles on the floor in front of her to ask the questions he was sent here to ask. "Lieutenant Commander. I have... There are things we need to know."

She nods. "Of course."

"How did you find us?"

She grins. "I think you know the answer to that too."

Lenaal shakes his head. "No one's broken our encryptions in years, Lieutenant Commander. How the hell did Chekov do it?"

Her grin widens. "He had some help."

"All of you?"

"Of course. You didn't think we'd let you get away that easily, did you?"

Lenaal stares at her.

She cocks her head to the side. "What?"

He swallows, trying to hold the questions back. But then he looks at her--really looks at her, the lines around her eyes and the strength in her back--and decides he doesn't care. " _Why?_ "

Her eyes go a little sad. "You're family, Leonard."

He swallows. "I lied to you. To all of you. You must have figured that out almost as soon as you realized there was something _to_ figure out. Why would you come after me after I'd spent our entire relationship living a lie?"

"Did you or did you not spend three years getting Jim through the Academy?"

"That was just my job."

"Did you or did you not?"

He sighs. "I did."

"Did you or did you not risk your career to save him from death's door?"

"I did."

"Did you or did you not spend five years on the Enterprise with us, keeping us all safe and sane and alive?"

He swallows. "I did."

"Was any of that a lie?"

He closes his eyes. "No. None of that was a lie."

He feels arms around his chest and raises his arms to wrap around her too. "Then you're family, Leonard. This body, your job, your reasons... none of that changes that fact. You're family. And you always will be."

Lenaal swallows, wrapping his arms around her. "Okay. Okay."

\---------

Eight hours later, Lenaal convinces the Council to open up communications with the _Enterprise_.

Spock's voice has an element of desperation to it that Lenaal knows no one but he and the crew of the _Enterprise_ will notice. It makes negotiations almost ludicrously easy. He and the rest of the command comes down to have their knowledge of the location of Cenophia Sealed by one of the First Spirits. Only a few of the crew had been privy to the location, Sulu on the helm almost nonstop during the travel after they'd determined the precise location of Cenophia. Lenaal eyes the second helmsman, and wonders if he's as trustworthy as Jim seems to have thought he was. There are only a few other faces that Lenaal doesn't recognize, but each one cuts like a knife.

Each one takes the Sealing with due respect and calmness before beaming back up to the ship, until only Spock is left. When Nerali and her Warriors come out with Jim and Uhura in tow, they submit just as easily.

Lenaal hasn't seen Jim since the poorly-thought out meeting the night before, and he looks all of the almost 200 hours he's been in the cell. He takes his Seal, and eyes Spock distantly, keeping his gaze pointedly away from Lenaal.

For too long, Lenaal doesn't even consider approaching them, tempted to just let them go on their way on their own. But the Bond is tugging at him, making him wonder if Jim feels every inch of this separation the way he does.

It's Wara elbowing him that gives him the courage to approach them.

Reluctantly, and pretty clearly only at Uhura's urging (that elbow in his ribs isn't as subtle as she’d obviously been trying to make it), Jim looks up at him, eyes steely.

The words that spill over Lenaal's lips aren't the ones he'd meant to say. "I didn't know who you were on the shuttle. They didn't give me a face, they didn't give me a name. They just told me to go to Starfleet and that I would find you. They didn't tell me until about a month in that you were the one I was supposed to keep track of, and that my mission was to make you captain of the Enterprise."

This doesn't seem to bring Jim any comfort. "So you always knew."

"I always knew."

"That's why you never stopped... Is that why you never stopped...?"

Lenaal looks away, considering. "To some extent. But I think even if I hadn't had those orders I would've stuck by you." He looks back at Jim. "You're an easy man to follow, Jim Kirk. A born leader. And you didn't need any help with that."

Jim stares up at him, eyes wide and desperate. "Come back with me."

Lenaal closes his eyes and, for a second, lets himself dream. But he knows better. "I can't, Jim."

Jim just nods, like he'd known that would be Lenaal's answer. "You know I'll always--"

"I know."

Jim swallows and nods. "As long as... As long as you know."

Lenaal grits his teeth on a smile. Watches Jim turn away and take Uhura's hand. Watches them approach Spock, who lays a kiss on Uhura's cheek before taking Jim's other hand and reaching for his comm.

"Three to beam up."

Watches them disappear in the flash of the transporter.

He doesn't let himself wish he could follow.

\--------

And that, he thinks, should be that.

Until the Council calls him up a month later. He doesn't think anything of it--probably just another assignment--until he walks in and sees Jenarel standing just off to the side, shifting uneasily from side to side.

"Jenarel?"

She just shakes her head, looking over at the High Councillor. Lenaal turns to match the line of her gaze.

Rena looks down at him, eyebrow arched. "We'll then, Healer. Your daughter seems to think we may have been hasty in calling you back."

"Excuse me?"

"She seems to think there is more good you could do as a Human than here with us."

"I--"

"Sounds like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Jenarel's head whips around to look at Lenaal, and he looks back, meeting her gaze.

"Daddy?"

He smiles softly. Apologetically.

Rena interrupts. "So we're offering you a chance. We can send you back. You can take on a Human skin again. Stand by Jim Kirk's side and be whatever he will let you be. But you will never be able to return here."

Lenaal swallows. "Or?"

"Or you can stay here."

Lenaal closes his eyes. It's more than he deserves. It's more than he _wants_. It was so much easier when he thought there'd been no choice. Now, though.

Now.

Jenarel's hand slips into his, and he startles, looking down at her.

"I just- I want you to be happy, Daddy."

Lenaal stares at her, trying to read into everything she isn't saying. Then he leans forward, pressing a kiss into her forehead. "My little girl. My brave, brave little girl."

She bites her lip and looks away.

Rena's voice cuts through the moment. "Have you decided, Healer?"

Lenaal thinks of Jenarel. Thinks of everything of hers he'll miss if he leaves. Of her graduation and her career and her future. Of not seeing her grow old, of not meeting her Bondmates. Of leaving her to Joreno and Weren.

He thinks of Jim. Thinks of everything he'll miss if he stays. Of his inevitable promotion to Admiral. Of never again seeing a smile light up Scotty's face, or a smirk cross Uhura's. Of Spock and Sulu and Chekov and the rest he'll be leaving behind.

He thinks of the two worlds he has the privilege of living between, of knowing so well and loving so fiercely that he will love and miss something and someone no matter where he chooses to be. That he will be loved and missed in turn.

He looks up at Rena, face calm and certain.

"I have."

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1\. Timelines! So, a Cenophian year covers 17.5 Earth years. There are 511 days in a Cenophian year, each one taking about 300 Earth hours. The Cenophian year is further broken down into 47 months, which average about 11 days apiece. And because I got lazy at that point in the planning, hours are the same length.
> 
> 2\. Cenophian words! There are a few of them in here, and eventually, when I'm not sick of looking at this piece, I'll put together a glossary here. For now, the only one that may cause the most confusion is _Malaysha_ which is a small purple flower found on the planet of Cenophia, known for its soothing scent and healing properties. It is used throughout the piece as an endearment by Lenaal for his daughter Jenarel, similar to the English "Honey" or "Sweetheart."
> 
> 3\. You should definitely go check out the [art](http://banbury.livejournal.com/158771.html) and [mix](http://tresa-cho.dreamwidth.org/299599.html) if you haven't already.


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